
Class 

Book 

Gopightl^^. 



CflE«*I6HT DEPOSIT. 



Th Golden Window 
of the East 

Oriental Impressions 

by 

Milton Reed 

Author of "A Roving He Would Go," "The 
Democratic Ideal," "The Sea of Faith ," etc. 



An hour before the worshipp'd sun 
Peered forth the golden window of the east. 
— Shakespeare 




Boston 

Sherman, French & Company 

1912 






y^ 



COPYKIGHTj 1912 

Sherihak, F;RE]srcjif ^ Company 



©C!,A3'^8388 



FOREWORD 

The matter of this volume is not built upon 
guide-books and itineraries. For these the au- 
thor has little use, and has used them but little 
in his many wanderings. 

The author's theory has been that the wan- 
derer, before his start, should absorb in his mem- 
ory all the information possible of the countries 
he is about to visit, keep his mind open for local 
impressions, see with his own eyes and make his 
own judgments. 

All the following chapters were written on the 
spot, as the author moved from place to place, 
and while the local color was most vivid. His 
most abiding interest was in the human element: 
the ancient races of the Oriental home-land: and 
in the sharp contrasts in the social life of the 
East and West. 

He hopes that some of this interest may be 
transmuted into the minds of those who are kind 
enough to read the volume. 

Milton Reed. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Overland 1 

II On the Pacific 8 

III Rainbow-Crowned Honolulu ... 12 

IV Japan Revisited 21 

V The Japan of To-day 28 

VI The Philippine Islands .... 37 

VII Hong Kong 49 

VIII From Hong Kong to Singapore . . 60 

IX Java^ the Enchanted Isle ... 68 

X The Malayan Peninsula .... 105 

XI Burma 125 

XII India 134 

XIII India (Continued) 145 

XIV India (Continued) 158 

XV India (Continued) 169 

XVI India (Continued) 183 

XVII India (Continued) 197 

XVIII Ceylon, the Beautiful . . . .211 



OVERLAND 

There lies your way^ due West. Then Westward-ho. 

Shakespeare. 

Leaving Boston, under November skies, the 
train whisked over the Berkshire Hills into the 
Hudson Valley; thence reeled through the rich 
plains of Central New York; chopped into the 
northwest corner of Pennsylvania; then cut an 
almost straight line through the W^estem Re- 
serve of Ohio; flitted through great cities as if 
over beds of mushrooms ; penetrated into Indiana 
and slipped along a cordon of manufacturing 
cities ; skirted the sandy shores of Lake Erie ; 
thence bounced over the Indiana levels ; touched 
the watery hem of Lake Michigan; and, at last, 
emptied its passengers in the monster city of 
Chicago. 

CHICAGO 

Such a maze of human interests; such a gaunt 
and smoky exterior; but such cordial and hos- 
pitable interiors ; such abounding good-fellow- 
ship; warm welcomes and regretted partings. 
Chicago is the typical expression of the Ameri- 
can spirit; with its rush, its incredible dynamics 



2 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

of energy, its masterful advance. One's head al- 
most reels in reading of its mighty cobweb of 
streets ; of its millions of capital ; of its am- 
bitious buildings, its restless vigor. Chicago is 
a wonderful mirror of modem life. It has lured 
to itself some of the best human stuff of the 
world. It has ofFered opportunities which have 
been grasped by the shrewd. Along with talent 
and brain, there naturally has come also a sweep- 
ing-in of some of the world's bilge, from which no 
community is exempt. The youth and vigor of 
the city have made it plastic ; it responds to every 
pressure of science and progress. 

The instinct for great undertakings, the au- 
dacity of conception, the thoroughness of com- 
pletion, the masterful designs, are what have most 
deeply impressed me, in the Chicago spirit. 
Here are two' instances : 

The immense increase in population, the ex- 
tension of the city in every direction but the 
east, — where Lake Michigan imposes an impass- 
able barrier, — the general flatness of the land, 
the vast volume of railroad traffic, have led, as 
in other cities, to the abolition of grade crossings. 
Much of the work has been done ; among those 
uncompleted is the Grand Avenue crossing. It 
has been learned that 1,400 trains pass over this 
crossing every day. Now, by the concerted ac- 
tion of the five railroad corporations using it, a 
gigantic work of engineering, at an estimated 
cost of $155,000,000, is to create viaducts and 



OVERLAND 3 

subways over and under the prairie. Modem 
engineering laughs at natural obstacles. The 
old earth is kneaded, raised and lowered, at man's 
whim. 

In the external aspect of Chicago, nothing is 
more noticeable than the monstrous buildings in 
the congested districts. To make way for these 
towering structures, buildings are ruthlessly 
sacrificed which, in their day, cost large sums. 
Greater and greater, higher and higher buildings 
take their place. I have a friend of German 
birth, who came to this country, poor, and ig- 
norant of our language, shortly after the close 
of the Civil War. He obtained work as a car- 
penter; then became a contractor in the con- 
struction of steel-ribbed buildings ; acquired 
land with a wise guess as to the future 
growth of Chicago; and now is worth sev- 
eral millions of dollars. He is seventy-four years 
of age, undaunted and progressive. He is leav- 
ing his mark upon his adoptive city by the con- 
struction of a great apartment building, costing 
$1,600,000. Age has not chilled his activities. 
At a time when most men have retreated from 
life's heats into the calm seclusion of old age, he 
personally supervises this exacting enterprise 
with the eagerness of youth; watches every beam 
and adjustment with a master's eye. He looks 
not back to the lost years of his past, but ad- 
vances to meet the industrial needs of the un- 
known future with a noble audacity. Such is a 



4 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

manifestation of the spirit which has created the 
Chicago of to-day. 

OVER THE ROCKIES 

After a day and a half in Chicago, crowded 
with the gracious hospitality of my friends, Dr. 
and Mrs. George M. Chamberlin, we took the 
Overland special at the noble Northwestern Rail- 
road station, for San Francisco. Crossing Illi- 
nois and Iowa in the night-time, nothing was seen 
by us of their stretch of farms of almost un- 
equaled agricultural productiveness. In the 
early morning we crossed the Missouri from Coun- 
cil Bluffs to Omaha, and entered Nebraska. 
Here we had the first touch of winter. The tem- 
perature had fallen to the freezing point during 
the night, and a light fluff of snow had powdered 
the dun fields. As we crossed the River Platte, 
its surface was crusted with a film of ice. All 
day long the train rolled over the Nebraska prai- 
ries. We skipped for a few miles into Colorado, 
and then twisted into rugged, scrawny Wyoming. 
The rolling land, dusty with alkali, the bare fur- 
rows, the wrinkled hills, had an inhospitable as- 
pect, juiceless and hard. In Utah we felt the 
solitudes of its deserts ; not so grim as those of 
New Mexico and Arizona, but inarticulate in 
their dreariness. Sagebrush and the cactus are 
their expression of vegetable life ; rock, dust and 
alkali sprinkle the landscape with a grizzly color. 
It was in Great Salt Lake valley that I again 



OVERLAND 5 

realized what the Mormons had done in the way 
of fighting the ferocity of nature, reclaiming 
the wilderness and fitting it for the needs of man. 
From Omaha onward we had been on the Union 
Pacific system. Once more I rode over the tres- 
tle, some thirty miles in length, which the rail- 
road company has built, across an arm of Great 
Salt Lake. Uncanny, spectral, uninterpretable 
are such basins of salt as this lake and the Dead 
Sea of Palestine. We associate inland waters 
with buoyant, bubbling life. Shores glistening 
with crystal salt, a pungent, saline odor in the 
air, an absence of birds and fish-life, drape such 
a body of water in a shroud of unreality. 

Yet, the setting was splendid; around us, the 
dipping hills of the Uinta and Wasatch moun- 
tain ranges ; the lead-colored waters, tinted with 
the flickering rays of the descending sun ; the 
air, sparkling under some current of electric vor- 
tices ; the long train curling along over the tres- 
tle. The scene was one of almost supernatural 
beauty ; all was so strange, so detached from con- 
ventional life. 

Then the train plunged into the mountain 
gorges. Nevada, with its arid hills, its wilder- 
ness of sage brush, was traversed during the 
night. In the morning there was a stop at 
Reno, and we entered California at Truckee and 
came under the Southern Pacific system. Soon 
we were in a wonderland of mystery and 
beauty. The snowsheds over the track on the 



6 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

high Sierras being passed, and the Continental 
Divide, some 8000 feet in altitude, having pre- 
viously been crossed; desert, alkali, dust and 
grime left behind, — we fed our eyes on the glori- 
ous beauty of the Blue Canyon and the riotous 
Sierras. The great ranches of the Sacramento 
Valley were spread out like enormous fans. A 
flange of hills sent down a current of sweet moun- 
tain air. We had spanned canyons, heard the 
gurgle of tumbling waterfalls, leaped from moun- 
tain to valley and from valley to mountain ; rocky 
fastnesses had opened their arms for us ; the 
plains had crouched before us ; we were in Sac- 
ramento. From this point the ride to Benicia 
did not seem long. Here a huge ferry boat swal- 
lowed our train. We passed over the water, un- 
der the shadow of Mount Diabolo, to Oakland; 
thence in the early afternoon we were delivered 
from another and longer ferry-ride into San 
Francisco. 

SAN FRANCISCO 

The city at the Golden Gate has arisen from 
its ruins into splendor. The old San Francisco 
is no more. The Forty-Niners would no longer 
recognize it. I was here, on the last of several 
visits, when the crack of the earthquake, the fiery 
breath of a conflagration, had left the city 
scarred and blasted. Now it is a network of 
vast hotels and apartment houses. I asked my- 
self: Are there no homes here.'' Detached 



OVERLAND 7 

houses are rare. Market Street is again lined 
with big shops, theaters, hotels and cafes. The 
unique climate alone has not changed. Chilly 
winds still squeal over the city. One side of a 
street may be semi-tropical; the other freezing. 
There had been no rain for months ; the air was 
pregnant with impalpable dust. The rainy sea- 
son was due ; I know from experience what a 
splash and wash this season is in San Francisco. 
Our stay in California was brief; most of it 
passed as the guests of my classmate, William T. 
Reid, at Relmont. 

• ^ ■ ■ ^ ■' [ '^ ■ I 1 



II 

ON THE PACIFIC 
FROM THE GOLDEN GATE TO HONOLULU 

The burden of the desert of the sea. 

Isaiah. 

Back in San Francisco for one night; then the 
embarkment the next day for the tremendous 
voyage to Hong Kong, over the trackless Pacific. 
We embarked amid the hub-bub of farewells, 
the scrambling after luggage, and the usual con- 
fusion attending the departure of a steamer. 
Once on board, one seemed to have stepped into 
the Orient. The officers were Americans, but all 
the crew and stewards Chinese ; and every one of 
the Chinese had suffered amputation of his queue, 
to indicate his sympathy with the revolutionary 
party in the Celestial Empire. 

November 9. — The steamer is now about 900 
miles from the Golden Gate. Its huge bulk slips 
along gently on the soft bosom of the Pacific. It 
carries 1000 souls; each leading his own life; liv- 
ing on the steamer for variant purposes. There 
do not seem to be many tourists ; it is not yet the 
tourist season. There are quite a number of gov- 
ernment officials bound for Manila; some are 

8 



ON THE PACIFIC 9 

spruce officers, who walk the deck with a military 
air; others are clerks and educators. The Ameri- 
can government allows each of its Philippine em- 
ployes a six months' vacation, with full pay and 
an allowance for transportation, every three 
years. This is necessary for sanitary considera- 
tions. Surely the Philippines are a costly ex- 
periment. 

The passengers represent many nationalities. 
Steamer life is a strange mixture. The accident 
of travel brings together representatives of many 
strains of the sons of men. Perhaps twenty Jap- 
anese are on the way to their home land, Nippon ; 
all can talk English; they are courteous and af- 
fable. 

Travel is certainly not a field for serious read- 
ing. A life of constant change is jerky and 
ragged. However, nearly all travelers pretend 
to read something, however frothy. On cars and 
steamers the trashy novel reigns supreme. In 
our parlor car I observed but one person reading 
a serious book, and he was a Japanese, Prof. 
Coolidge's "The United States as a World 
Power." 

A few missionaries are among the passengers — 
men generally of culture, who are willing to ex- 
patriate themselves from home and friends to 
carry the religion of Christ, a message of good 
will, of education and of uplift, to the weltering 
millions in Asia. 



10 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

About one-half the passengers are business men, 
traders : buyers of Oriental wares ; sellers of Amer- 
ican machinery ; purchasers of rubber in the East. 

So, each of us wanderers "chases his favorite 
phantom." Each has his purpose. Some mag- 
net has drawn all of us into this iron monster fur- 
rowing its way over the abysmal wastes of the 
Pacific. 

November 10. — Perhaps the most impressive 
element in a voyage over the Pacific is that of its 
desolateness and solitude. We are now three 
days out from the Golden Gate ; and, in that time, 
have sighted but one vessel, a Japanese steamer. 
Even the birds of the air and the finny creatures 
of the deep refuse us their companionship. The 
air and ocean seem destitute of organic life. 

Many Chinese in the steerage spend their time 
and risk their hard earnings in gambling at fan- 
tan. At home or abroad, the gambling instinct 
lures too many of the Orientals into poverty. 
What drunkenness is to the Occidental, so is gam- 
bling to the Oriental : forces which condemn thou- 
sands to the scrap-heap. Yet gambling seems an 
almost universal mania. The great American 
game of poker absorbs the attention of a score 
of tourists in the first cabin. There are rumors 
of all-night sittings at the game: of large losses 
and gains, as a matter of course. 

Glorious weather still. The ocean seems a 
flowing curtain of purple, tufted with sprays of 
cresting white. 



ON THE PACIFIC 11 

November 11. — ^We are leaving the trade- winds 
behind us. A wave of heat has swept up from 
the tropics and is cushioning the air. 

Singular: what a mixture of people gathers on 
the iron tub which is ferrying us over the Pacific. 
A millionaire-dowered daughter of a great rail- 
road magnate, anemic and pale, spends a part 
of her honeymoon tour in sucking cigarettes. 
She is not the only female on board who indulges 
in this pastime. 

Singular, also : How the Latin races have been 
taught politeness. A Brazilian lawyer and his 
wife sat near us at the table, attractive in the 
neatness of their apparel and elegant in their 
natural courtesy. When will we of the English- 
speaking race find time to cultivate our manners 
to this velvet finish? Are we too busy? 

Such glorious moonlight, mellow and lustrous. 
The wrinkled sea trembles in silver threads under 
the moon's opulence. On the Pacific, time and 
space have little meaning; the ocean seems a type 
of universal space: "Thou goest forth, dread, 
fathomless, alone." 

Under the flare of the sun, and in the silent 
watches of the night, we have the sweeping ocean 
to ourselves. We seem to touch infinitude. The 
big steamer rocks, under its subdued enginery, 
softly as a sea-fowl. On the heaving breast of 
the ocean it is only a feather. The waters close 
over its wake. It is hardly a bubble in the yeast 
of brine. 



Ill 

RAINBOW-CROWNED HONOLULU 

From summits where tired winds are fain, 
Spent with the vast and howling main. 
To treasure half their island-gain. 

Browning. 

November 14. — Is it possible that we have 
been in rainbow-decked Honolulu and are now 
a day's run from it? What a fleeting vision 
of one of the sweetest of this world's beauty 
spots ! In the silences of the early morning the 
island of Oahu rose from the deep and lured us 
ashore. Passing the great cliff of Diamond 
Head, now the guardian of Honolulu, ribbed with 
cannon, perforated with port-holes, stored with 
reservoirs of powder, food and water ; linked from 
side to side with a tunnel pierced through the 
spongy tufa, we entered the harbor of the city. 
In the background towered Punch Bowl and Tan- 
talus, the two hills upon whose flanks the city 
creeps down to the shore-line. A thicket of trees 
embowered the sections of the city used for resi- 
dences. As the steamer lurched its way up to 
the wharf, buildings familiar to me came into 
view. As we drew within hailing distance, a wave 
of the hand told me that my friend, Hon. William 

U 



RAINBOW-CROWNED HONOLULU 13 

R. Castle, had come down to meet me, with gra- 
cious Hawaiian hospitahty. Soon we were by his 
side and were riding in a motor-car, as his guests, 
along rows of hibiscus, a wealth of the scarlet 
poinsettia, by columns of plumy palms, and all 
the pageant of aborescent beauty which gilds the 
landscapes of this delicious land. Sweet was the 
air that was distilled from the hills. A rainbow, 
glistening on the uplands, in the refraction from 
a morning shower, was, indeed, the bow of prom- 
ise. 

Swarthy Kanakas were on the streets peddling 
fruits and flowers. Gorgeous wreaths (leis) were 
off^ered to the stranger to be worn on his neck, 
as a symbol of welcome. All was so diiferent 
from the colder life of our home-land; a gush of 
warmth, a flow of friendliness, a cordial of sun- 
shine; the whispering fall of the mountain 
brooks ; the downy clouds ; the feathering surf 
breaking over the coralline reefs ; the blending 
of strange races ; all presented aspects of that 
delicate charm with which those mid-Pacific 
islands are dowered. 

Our car, a K'anaka half-breed acting as chauf- 
feur, was soon on its way to Waikiki Beach and 
the Moana Hotel, to the aquarium, where we saw 
some of the strangest and most beautiful forms 
of fish-life that inhabit the ocean. With the 
possible exception of the aquarium at Naples, 
Italy, this at Honolulu contains the most inter- 
esting types of fish of all such exhibitions. 



14 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

MAKINE LIFE 

How little we know of marine life ; its popu- 
lousness and diversity; of the splendor of color; 
the amazing variety of anatomy. No bird that 
springs into the vaulted air and circles in space; 
no feathered inhabitant of Brazilian or African 
forests, no winged wilding of the jungle, plain or 
mountain, is preened with more glorious colors 
than some of these finny creatures, whose home 
is in the translucent coral-groves, whose element 
is the deep, cool brine. What a cornucopia 
Mother Nature must have when she distills such 
glorious coloring in the alembic of the ocean and 
paints it over tiny creatures, whose wanderings 
are where no human eye follows them. Is this 
waste or does it prove that when the brain and 
eye of man have been trained by the study of all 
the relations of organic life, we shall find har- 
monies and beauty everywhere; in the echoing 
caves of the ocean, as well as in the starry gar- 
dens of the sky, and in the wild flowers that gush 
and gleam wherever the properties of the soil 
permit them to live. 

Little, indeed, do we know of the copiousness, 
richness and incalculable diversities of every form 
which life assumes ; and all this seeming wasteful- 
ness may have an element of economy. 

For instance, in the Honolulu aquarium, fish- 
life begins with the flat creatures, whose bodies 
are so thin, and whose color, if color it may be 



RAINBOW-CROWNED HONOLULU 15 

called, so closely resembles the sand or gravel at 
the bottom of the tank that they are scarcely 
distinguishable from the earthy substance. The 
grossest types are thus shielded from their ene- 
mies by nature's protective forces. Then the 
types ascend to the exquisite angel-fish; the elec- 
tric eel, and many a creature which glided 
through the water, contributing a flash of color 
and a gracefulness of motion closely akin to bird- 
life. One type of fish was cerulean blue, as the 
naturalist Thoreau said of the bluebird, "carry- 
ing the sky on its back"; others were painted in 
red, as if swathed in fire; some were zebra- 
striped; some of a pale, opalescent, bluish color. 
There were ranges of decoration from the in- 
tensest and deepest hues to the faintest, softest 
and most delicate pigments into which the gold, 
silver and most heightened daubs had evaporated. 
The craw-fish crawled along the bottom ; the re- 
pulsive squid, the cuttle-fish, opened his tubular 
lungs and clung, a pulpy, flabby mass, to the 
coral. Thus the fish-life passed from distorted, 
hideous forms into shapes of rare and changeful 
loveliness ; children of the coral groves ; born, 
living, dying, in their natural element of brine ; 
their lives spent in killing each other in the great 
charnel house of the ocean. 

The outlay of the United States government 
in fortifying Pearl Harbor and Diamond Head 
and establishing the military defense of the 
islands has dispersed a great amount of money 



16 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

among the local communities. There were evi- 
dences of a healthy growth since my last visit; 
of new roads established ; more houses ; a larger 
civic life. 

A revisit to the Pali, the picturesque moun- 
tain pass ; the scene of a sanguinary battle in 
1795, which resulted in the conquest of Oahu by 
King Kamehemeha; a pass which is a gash in 
volcanic hills embroidered in living green, and 
commanding a superb view of ocean, valley, 
coasts, vaulting hills, and billowy sky, was a fit- 
ting close to a lovely day, which had been 
crowned with such unstinted hospitality and 
rounds of pleasure. 

Now the beautiful island of Oahu, embroidered 
with rainbows, freshened by gurgling cataracts, 
shadowed with verdant valleys, fringed with 
palms, fanned by soft winds, washed by the foam- 
ing surf, pranked with the plumage of tropical 
shrubs, and above all, inhabited by people with 
whom hospitality is spontaneous and directed by 
a high courtesy, — is left behind. 

Once more the bulky steamer moves beyond the 
jetties. Eighty passengers have left us and 
only twelve new ones have started on our run 
of ten days to Yokohama. 

STEAMER-IilFE 

November 17. — Three days out from Hono- 
lulu, in a general northwesterly course. The Pa- 



RAINBOW-CROWNED HONOLULU 17 

cific presents an expressionless face; except for 
the wake of our steamer there is not a fleck of 
white on its green cloak. No whisper reaches 
us from its rhythmic swell. The lustrous air is 
charged with a gush of heat which has sucked 
the sharp edge of the trade-winds. It seems like 
an empty vortex ; as if all life-sustaining qualities 
had been exhausted by some heat-drainage. Life 
aboard the steamer shares in the atmospheric 
narcotic. Women have donned thin apparel; 
men are in their shirt-sleeves. The opiate of the 
Orient saps Northern vigor and de-energizes 
brain and muscle. The mind recoils from exer- 
cise; to read is soon to' forget what has been 
read. Alone, with no companionship but that of 
the voiceless ocean and mute stars, in unimagin- 
able desolateness, we have the Pacific to ourselves. 
Above its immeasurable expanse, the hollow dome 
of the sky, tinged at the dip of the horizon with 
silvery clouds, seems an inverted ocean. 

November 18. — To-day is Saturday on the cal- 
endar. It should be Friday, but that day has been 
lost; blotted out. This morning we crossed the 
meridian of 180 degrees, and therefore dropped 
a day. In following the run westward we lose 
about twenty minutes each day; midway from 
Greenwich the lost hours amount to a full day; 
so it dies, still-born. Thus we have the strange 
experience of living two days in one. Our arti- 
ficial contrivance for marking the time collides 
with astronomical time; the natural prevails over 



18 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

the artificial; man's calendar loses going west- 
ward what it gains going eastward. This week, 
then, must get along with six days. 

AVOIDING A TYPHOON 

The typhoon is the dread of mariners on the 
Pacific, where it has its lair. The monsoon is a 
steady wind which blows in certain months of the 
year in the central and southern Pacific. When 
it sweeps from the Himalayas, it scorches and 
blisters ; when it pours itself up from Polynesia 
it brings rain. It is not destructive in violence. 

The typhoon arises from an atmospheric de- 
pression ; a vacuum is created ; the winds rush in 
to fill it; a tremendous energy is developed; de- 
struction, often death, are in its dreaded wake; 
it is cyclonic; it races in a circle. 

Yesterday, as I have written, was almost pre- 
ternaturally calm; pulseless, windless. The ocean 
was ironed down to a glassy mirror; at times the 
air was stifling; to breathe it was like panting in 
a Vacuum. What did this imcanniness mean? 
The passengers did not know, but the steamer's 
officers did. Night before last, the click of the 
wireless was heard by us for some time; yet no 
message was reported. It was evident that some- 
one had communicated with our steamer. The 
ofl5.cers kept their own counsel. 

Shortly after lunch the crew were piped to a 
fire drill. Some wore life preservers ; at a signal 
the lifeboats were lowered and then raised back 



RAINBOW-CROWNED HONOLULU 19 

to their positions. Later on, all the awnings 
were removed; the oars were taken from the life- 
boats and stacked in detachments on the deck. 
The Chinese crew did all this work in an orderly 
manner. 

Then, suddenly, the steamer's course was 
changed from the northwest to the south; speed 
was slacked; evidently the machinery was under 
test, to ascertain if it would respond to the com- 
pass in a sudden emergency; the tests appeared 
to be satisfactory. 

Passengers wondered what all this meant ; they 
soon understood something of the situation. Al- 
most instantaneously a frowning mass of dark 
cloud seemed to leap from the sea into the air 
to the westward. It grew darker and darker, 
and its monstrous face was anything but be- 
nignant. Like an all-compassing shadow it 
moved toward the steamer. Had we continued 
on the northwesterly course it would have envel- 
oped us ; but, like a deer escaping from a wolf's 
jaws, the captain had the steamer to the south- 
ward. 

Night fell upon the deep while the steamer 
was clipping its way from the mop of clouds. 
A wash of ruffling waves lay between us. Look- 
outs were stationed at several angles of the 
steamer. The captain kept to the bridge ; there 
was no excitement ; possibly no serious danger ; 
but the situation demanded extreme caution. 
We saw why so many precautionary measures had 



20 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

been taken. We afterwards learned that the wire- 
less, on the night before, had caught word from 
an east-bound steamer that it had encountered 
rough weather and a typhoon on the coast of 
Japan. Thus the wireless saved our steamer from 
a present encounter with it. We rode out of its 
wake forewarned. The steamer was not sucked into 
its vortex, to struggle with the hideous aerial 
monster; bom from the uncreate; whose air- 
strands are strong as links of iron ; whose im- 
palpable arms have the clutch of death; in whose 
vice many a sailing-craft has gone down to wa- 
tery death; an enemy with which the giant 
steamer, sheathed in iron, buttressed with most 
powerful machinery, dreads to grapple. Such is 
one of the perils of the deep ; perils that grow 
less and less, as the human brain provides me- 
chanical weapons to the mariner, with which to 
meet them. 

To-day, the cloud-monster has vanished. The 
water is corrugated. Once more on our north- 
west course, the temperature is falling. For 
some days, at least, we are emerging from trop- 
ical heats. 

We are chopping along in the foaming trough 
left by the typhoon. That eyeless, formless, 
body less creature of the air, that dragon of in- 
visible powers, whose teeth and claws are the 
sightless winds, has left us at least for a time. 
Is it dissolved into its impalpable elements or is 
it brooding in the path of some other wayfarer 
on the Pacific? 



IV 

JAPAN REVISITED 

From the far-off isles enchanted 

Heaven has planted 
With the golden fruit of Truth. 

Longfellow. 

November 24. — When I peeked out of the 
porthole in my stateroom this morning, I was 
glad to see a landfall, the rocky coast of Japan. 
More than 3300 miles of ocean waste were be- 
hind us since we left Honolulu. We had crept 
up into the Northwest Pacific; encountered 
strong winds and rushing currents. Nothing 
was left of our track. We had merely made a 
few bubbles, a little spray on the laughing or 
sobbing ocean, which had immediately been swal- 
lowed into its all-devouring stomach. 

Now we are to tread once more on the dry husk 
of the earth; to exchange our desolateness for 
human companionship. 

The first to greet us were the wh!ite-robed 
gulls. Where there is a vessel, their instinct tells 
them there may be food. Out of the silences of 
the sky, rising and falling with the billows, fan- 
ning the salty air, they whirled around us. 

The sea is a great feeder of Japan. Without 
21 



M GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

its harvest of fish it is hard to see how its swarm- 
ing millions could subsist. As it is, there are re- 
ports of tendencies to exhaustion of the fish sup- 
ply; and the government is taking measures to 
protect it. Poultry is almost the only flesh food 
of the Japanese. For ages, the nimble, athletic 
little Jap has made the sea his home; from it he 
has drawn food which has largely fed the nation. 
We passed through the skein of forts whch 
guard Yokohama and Tokio. The harbor of 
the latter is shallow and of little value. 

SOME JAPANESE PORTS 

Yokohama is the main port of entry of Japan. 
It is cordoned with miHtary defenses. Millions 
and millions of money have been expended in de- 
veloping them. We saw, at a distance, the navy- 
yard where Japan now builds her men-of-war. 
The spunky little kingdom does not intend to be 
caught napping. Like England, its insularity is 
one of its main defenses. An enemy can steal 
upon it only from the sea ; so, everywhere where 
a hostile force may land forts guard the coast. 
No one is allowed to take any photographs 
within a certain distance of a Japanese military 
reservation. The Imperial Year Book sup- 
presses all information as to the size of the army 
and navy. This is one of the secrets of the East. 
The Japanese have the listening ear and the si- 
lent tongue. When one of them is asked as to 
the military defenses of his country, he shrugs 



JAPAN REVISITED 23 

his shoulders, gives the Japanese grin, and an- 
swers : "I do not know." 

We landed at the pier in Yokohama from a 
tender, the harbor being too shallow for a steamer 
of heavy draught. The drizzle gave a moist, 
shabby, flabby look to streets and buildings. 
This is my second experience in touching Yoko- 
hama under moist skies. The streets were slimy. 
As we rode through them, in jinrikisha chairs, it 
was not long before our noses caught the Orien- 
tal smell. This is as pungent as the call of the 
East. The city of Yokohama is growing rap- 
idly. We took the train for Tokio, and saw a 
great number of buildings under construction. 
The business sections are fast becoming Occi- 
dentalized. Buildings of brick, stone, iron, per- 
haps concrete, are succeeding to the flimsy boxes 
of wood, with partitions and windows of paper, 
which are common forms of Japanese architec- 
ture. 

This change is even more true of Tokio, the 
capital of the empire ; an immense city, stretched 
like a huge cobweb on a plain ; perhaps the 
fourth or fifth of the cities of the world in the 
number of inhabitants. 

Main Street in Tokio resembles Broadway in 
New York, in the size and quality of its shops. 
Moreover, many of them had signs in the English 
language. On all sides, the spirit of the new 
Japan is evident; men have largely adopted Eu- 



M GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

ropean dress ; the women are generally more con- 
servative and wear the national garb. The front 
windows in the shops are decorated with as much 
profusion as in America. Unfortunately, a too 
prominent sign is that of liquor establishments. 
The curse of alcoholism is new to the Orient, ex- 
cept in the form of some native spirits, like the 
Japanese saki, a drink distilled from the alcoholic 
principle in rice. The European and American 
drinks are growing in popular use. What ef- 
fect this fact will have in the degeneration of 
the tough fiber of the Japanese physique remains 
to be seen. It certainly cannot make for good. 

Once more the quiet little homes, with tiled or 
thatched roofs, with miniature gardens, irregular, 
winding, spangled with roses and chrysanthe- 
mums, girded with fluted fences or hedges, threw 
their charms around the visitor. Bare-headed 
women, with coal-black hair, clothed in kimonos, 
many of them with babies cuddled in pouches on 
their backs ; swarms of swarthy children, with 
gleaming eyes, white teeth, smiling, smiling, smil- 
ing with looks of curious wonder at the Ameri- 
can visitors ; feet clattering with wooden clogs ; 
flowing tunics, little, round arms ; — these re- 
vealed the diff^erence between America and these 
far-off^ isles. 

Modern Tokio is a city of wide boulevards, big 
shops, electric lights ; show windows, paved side- 
walks, automobiles, bicycles, parks, trolley cars, 



JAPAN REVISITED 25 

of vulgarized fashion and up-to-date frivolities. 
Old Tokio and old Yokohama are types of the 
Japan of the rapidly fading past; narrow, dirty 
streets, without sidewalks ; either reeking with 
slime on a wet day, or flushed with dust in dry 
weather; little bits of houses and shops, where all 
the wares are exposed to view in the open air, re- 
gardless of filthy dust or soaking rain; lanterns 
suspended at all shop-fronts ; chattering, grinning 
men and women, standing in doors or on the" 
streets ; all the fronts unclosed, except by a drawn 
screen during the night ; handiwork going on in 
many of these; crowds of people, jostling each 
other, on foot or in 'rickshaws ; curious wares, 
strange toys; gewgaws and jimcracks of all 
kinds ; no one seeming to feel any inconvenience 
from mud or dust ; a reeling, drifting, sputtering, 
bubbling mass of human atoms ; such is a partial 
picture of street life in Old Japan. 

FUJIYAMA 

November 25. — ^We are again on the ocean ; 
bound for Kobe. The sail down the Yokohama 
harbor was very lovely. Mount Fujiyama gra- 
ciously arose from the drifting clouds and exhi- 
bited her snowy head for many a mile ; a mam- 
milary dome, graceful, pure, beautifully rounded. 
The day has been one of crystal clearness. The 
mountain, so often veiled in mists, could not have 
been seen to better advantage. It is the regal 
peak of Japan, invested with religious awe, 



26 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

swathed in superstitions ; a sacred mountain, 
which thousands of devotees ascend every year. 
It is a source of fear and dread, as well as of 
worship. Probably, if we knew the geologic his- 
tory of the vicinage, we should find that out of 
the vomit from its yawning crater and those of 
sister mountains has been formed a large part of 
the island. Rock, ashes, dust, gases, have been 
spewn from its ghastly stomach; from these have 
come soil, crops, and vegetal life, when its 
sputum had been enriched by vitalizing elements ; 
when the rock had been pounded into slime, re- 
freshed by the rains ; and the winds and birds had 
contributed germs of life. 

Well may the Japanese stand in awe before the 
creative forces of Fujiyama. Popular supersti- 
tions generally have their roots in some histor- 
ical fact ; imagination idealizes the bare fact in 
a semi-poetic garb; the fact is merged into the 
halo of a myth; it becomes consecrated by time, 
impressed upon the mystic sense of the people ; at 
last, a cult gathers around it; man builds a 
temple, a shrine, a cairn, as a link between fact 
and legend; and, at last, the historic perspective 
is forgotten. Fujiyama, the destroyer, the 
creator; its core in the bowels of the earth; its 
base on the earth's hard crust ; its venerable head 
wreathed in snows ; its trunks, scoriated with fis- 
sures, stands as the type of the permanent in his- 
tory, so far as any earthly thing is permanent. 
It has read the entire scroll of the history of Ja- 



JAPAN REVISITED 27 

pan ; it has created and destroyed over and over 
again. In the light of its age, mankind are only 
as puppets. Races may die out; kingdoms be 
overthrown ; civilizations ground into dust ; ar- 
mies melt, navies drown ; customs, garbs and all 
human usages become dreams, — ^yet the volcano 
stands in its awful majesty. Its base is not 
built on stubble. It makes no note of time. 
Ages fall into its crater like drops of rain. The 
tooth of years may gnaw at its vitals ; decay may 
attempt its destruction ; but new forces come to 
its aid ; if it must die at last, it spawns a fresh 
progeny of younger volcanoes to take its place. 
Ruthless, pitiless, lifeless, monstrous in magni- 
tude, sucking into its pores all the shifting cli- 
mates of the world, from the tropical heats to 
arctic ice,^ — it may almost truly say: "I am 
Japan ; the Land of the Rising Sun is myself." 



V 

THE JAPAN OF TO-DAY 

Everything is always changing; yet everything is 
always the same. 

French Proverb. 

Nov. 29. — Japan, with all its wonders and 
picturesqueness, is left behind. Its craggy 
shores have receded from view. Our stay in the 
Japanese ports was brief, but it gave an oppor- 
tunity to review former impressions and to catch 
a fugitive glimpse of some of the moving changes 
which are re-moulding Japanese life. 

These changes, which began forty years ago, 
are still active. The nation is progressing into 
new paths, unknown in the days of the Shoguns, 
Samurais and Daimios. A new Japan has risen 
from the dim past. Japan has moved from its 
seclusion into an expansive freedom which is at 
variance with almost every tradition and prej- 
udice embedded in the national character. The 
sharp revolution has been peaceful. Japan, iso- 
lated from the Asiatic continent, by a waste of 
seas, scant of soil, limited in natural resources, 
the buffer kingdom of the Orient, swathed in the 
swaddling bands of the ages, has admitted the 
28 



THE JAPAN OF TO-DAY 29 

Western light. It has put on the new, without 
entirely wrenching itself from the old. It has 
borrowed, adopted, adjusted, assimilated ; it has 
grafted on its parent stem without destroying the 
trunk. 

Three years have done much to change the ex- 
ternal aspect of Japanese life, since my last visit, 
and have produced many changes. I have al- 
ready spoken of some of them: — the widening of 
streets ; the use of brick, stone and iron in the 
construction of houses ; the change in the cos- 
tumes of the men; soldiers, sailors, policemen, and 
apparently most of the business men in the larger 
cities adopting the European style of dress ; coats 
and trousers succeeding to kimonos ; the great in- 
crease of the use of the English language. 

The Japanese smile is everywhere. The na- 
tion has not lost this charming asset. The peas- 
ant, who ages ago, was compelled to smile when 
he met a Samurai, — gradually incorporated his 
smile among the little civilities of life, and it has 
been absorbed as something no longer artificial, 
but as an instinctive act. 

THE UNDER-WORLD 

In fact, docility seems to be a part of the 
character of Japanese women. To renounce, to 
submit, to study the art of pleasing the male sex, 
is drilled into them from girlhood. As a race, 
the Japanese men, while holding a degrading con- 
ception of womankind, common in the Orient, are 



30 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

generally not physically cruel to women. In the 
large cities, this contempt may take the form of 
using wives and daughters as a commercial asset. 
The sexes are allowed two standards of morality ; 
and the women are the sufferers. What is called 
white slavery in the United States, — an insidious 
evil to which public attention was too long indif- 
ferent, — is rife in Japan. Some cities derive a 
considerable revenue from licensed prostitution. 
The conscience of the nation has not been awak- 
ened to this hideous barbarism. The Christian 
missionaries are doing all they can to create an 
honorable public sentiment against the traffic in 
women, but so far with no great degree of suc- 
cess. The stream of pollution will flow through 
the nation, until higher ethical standards are de- 
veloped. This hideous problem is at present the 
plague-spot of Japan. The nation has extir- 
pated caste; adopted a constitutional form of 
government; has done marvels in war. Now it 
needs an internal reform ; a birth of righteous- 
ness. Its present great peril is subjective; its 
stains must be washed out from within. Sin, evil, 
vice, licentiousness, exist everywhere; they are in- 
cident to human society. Japan is one of the 
few countries which throw a legal sanction over 
the most insidious of all evils. 

THE NEAR FUTURE 

Frugal, thrifty, industrious, patient, burden- 
bearing, and good-natured, the little Jap is build- 



THE JAPAN OF TO-DAY 31 

ing better than he knows. His country is the 
hope of Asia ; the rising star of the Orient ; the 
connecting link between the dreamy, inert millions 
of the vast Asian continent, and the audacious, 
vigorous, mechanical Occident. The Jap does 
not sin against the light, as a Christian does. 
He is the victim of a degraded religion ; his vices 
are the ruck and rot of his immense past. 

Meanwhile, the little Japs, male and female, 
are contributing their due part in the human 
drama. As I have sailed by the rocky isles, ob- 
served the sterility of much of the soil, watched 
the tiny parterres of terraced land, rising from 
the shore-line to the summits of the hills, I have 
been impressed by the thought of the enormous 
physical energy required to feed nearly 50,000,- 
000 people in this contracted territory, where 
there are scarcely three acres of arable land to 
each inhabitant; of the sweat, toil, and weariness 
which sustain the congested nation. Even in the 
cities and towns, we see this economy of land. 
One enters a tiny shop; usually rather dingy; in 
the rear is a paper partition; but open this par- 
tition, and a bit of a garden appears, hidden be- 
tween the walls. As the Japanese sense of art 
rejects the severity of straight lines, every path 
is zig-zag ; it curves among little rockeries ; 
stunted evergreen trees and flowering shrubs fur- 
nish the greenery and color. 

Then such courtesy to customers. Article 
after article is pulled out, in the hope that one of 



8£ GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

them will hit his taste and wallet. When the cus- 
tomer enters and leaves, all the clerks bow low. 
The higgling over bargains is a sharp intellectual 
exercise. The Oriental is a born trader. Some 
of the larger shops in Tokio' and Yokohama have 
fixed prices, but in most of the smaller shops 
prices are extremely flexible. Such seductive 
goods ; silks, and kimonos, with the hues of a 
flower garden ; wood and ivory carvings, bronzes, 
shell work, lacquer, all kinds of metal work, 
screens, cloisonne; and especially the beautiful 
pottery, which is one of the ancient arts of Japan. 

TAX-BURDENS 

Japan is still in the backwash of the Russian 
war. It is learning the cost of military glory. 
It faced the Russian giant and overthrew him. 
Its victory was on the side of progress. But it 
left a trail of debt which is taxing the resources 
of the Island Kingdom to the highest tension. 
Taxes have been heaped upon taxes. The stiff 
backbone of the nation is bending under them. 
The old statesmen, so-called, who carried the 
country through the Chinese and Russian wars, 
are passing away. The vast national debt is a 
cancer which is draining the vitals of business. 
Every possible source of public revenue seems to 
have been tapped and' sucked dry. 

Nevertheless, the irony of international jeal- 
ousies compels Japan to maintain an expensive 
army and navy. Much of the flower of its youth 



THE JAPAN OF TO-DAY 33 

is seized for the national defense. Japan is poor 
in money and in land. The annexation of For- 
mosa and Korea will supply some of the latter 
need ; but as wealth must, in the last analysis, be 
grubbed out of the soil, and Japan possesses such 
a small arc of the earth, the increase in wealth 
must be slow. 

Even in the mechanical arts it is hard pressed. 
Its silks, teas and rice are its main exports. In 
pottery, Germany and Austria are wounding it 
sorely ; both because of the better quality of their 
clay, and from the use of highly specialized ma- 
chinery; while most of the Japanese ceramics are 
hand-made. 

As "the destruction of the poor is their pov- 
erty," it is poverty which keeps Japan from sorely- 
needed internal improvements and from becoming 
a great maritime nation. The sea is a part of the 
national dower. Already the nation has two lines 
of steamers, subsidized by the government, which 
are among the finest of the Pacific merchant 
marine. 

Considering its territorial limitations and its 
congested millions of people, it is doubtful if any 
nation on the earth has contributed more than 
Japan, in late years, to a sense for orderly ad- 
ministration and social improvement. Nature 
casts no two nations in the same mould. The 
infinite diversity in humanity makes it picrtur- 
esque. The Japanese are a picturesque nation, 
indeed. From the nimble, simple-minded jinriki- 



S^ GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

sha coolie, with his white teeth, bubbling chat- 
ter, vivacious spirits, sly overcharges — a sort of 
human squirrel — to the reserved, subtle financier 
or statesman, impenetrable, elusive, through the 
whole gamut of Japanese social gradations — all 
are interesting. 

The real Japan, as may be said of the na- 
tional life of every country, is not in the large 
cities where life is standardized and flows in an 
energy of turbid current, — ^but must be seen in 
the shy villages, whose human beings live as in 
coverts, and where tradition and custom cake so- 
ciety with an impress that is not easily disturbed. 
Cities, the world over, are becoming monotonously 
similar. Steam and electricity are transforming 
all of them into a common mould. 

NAGASAKI 

Nagasaki, — once one of the famous ports of 
Japan, now shrunk to a somnolent, little place, — 
was quaint and sweet as ever. Around it is a 
sweep of wooded hills ; its shores are bathed in 
one of the prettiest of bays, the entrance to 
which is like winding into a secluded lake. Its 
narrow, tortuous streets are crowded with shy 
shops, where the visitor finds a rich assortment of 
national wares. 

The last time I was in Nagasaki was at the 
awakening of the spring; the scene was flooded 
with vernal sunshine: flowers were embroidering 
the hills and fields. It was the week of the Budd- 



THE JAPAN OF TO-DAY 35 

histic Easter: richly robed priests and dancing 
priestesses paraded the streets ; the cherry, peach 
and plum flung their blossoms into the scented 
air. Everything, vocal and voiceless, spoke of 
indwelling and inflowing life; of birth and 
growth, not of decay and death. 

This time I saw it when nature is administering 
its anodyne for the sleep of winter: — in the eb- 
bing hours of November. The clouds poured 
down copious rains ; there was an occasional burst 
of brassy sunshine, which seemed to bronze the 
hills and houses. A querulous wind raked and 
chilled all that it touched. Yet, in spite of slop, 
slime and drip, Nagasaki, next to Nikko and 
Nara, has a charm which no other town has pre- 
sented to me. Its face is always welcome, whether 
under the smile of spring, or the chilly touch of 
approaching winter. 

JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES 

All the Japanese whom I have met scout the 
thought of a war with the United States. The 
idea that little Japan, — smothered in debt, ground 
by taxation, burdened to the water-edge, should 
seek a war with the most powerful nation on 
earth, seems to them an insanity. Surely it is. 
On the other hand, the Japanese regard the 
Americans as their best friends. They are not 
a migratory race. They idealize their home-land. 
This idealization is the core of their intense pa- 
triotism and of the Shinto worship. 



36 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

To keep Japan from a financial collapse; to 
protect the integrity of its credit; to wring out 
of its impoverished people the interest on its 
huge debt ; to correct ancient abuses ; to develop 
the scant resources of the pigmy country ; all 
these and many other vexatious problems are 
enough to tax the uttermost resources of the 
empire. Japan is under a terrific strain. It is in 
no position to take risks ; unless a foreign war 
were started as a mask to conceal internal rotten- 
ness, as Louis Napoleon plunged France into the 
disastrous war with Germany. This calamity is 
not probable. 

The voyage down the Inland Sea, from Kobe 
to Nagasaki, was not under the golden pomp of 
sun and sky, under which I made it before. Yet, 
even if the clouds were leaden, and occasionally 
opened their sieve for an effusion of rain, the run 
through this enchanted, mountain-rimmed, flash- 
ing sea was not without charm. If not tricked 
out with radiant sun-gleams, if the sparkles were 
absent, and the light lack-luster, there was at 
least a glimmer of untaught, incommunicable love- 
liness; — a succession of shy villages, a heap of 
hills, a skein of bays, a fringe of forests, shim- 
mering valleys, vaulting uplands, the rhythmic 
monotone of the chanting sea ; — silver-sweet mists, 
vaporous films, gleams of light refracted from a 
thousand prisms. The choral of inanimate life 
was in a minor key, but all was harmony. 



VI 
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 

Take up the white man's burden — 

Send forth the best ye breed — 
Go bind your sons to exile 

To serve your captives' need: 
To wait in heavy harness 

On fluttered folk and wild, — 
Your new-caught, sullen peoples. 

Half-devil and half-child. 

Kipling. 

December 6. 

The steamer's run of 1,300 miles, from Na- 
gasaki to Manila, was over smooth seas and under 
soft skies. 

On the second day we sighted the beetling cliffs 
of the Island of Formosa. It arose by our side, 
frowned upon us until the late hours of the night ; 
then receded like a fleck of sea-foam. This is- 
land, now Japanese territory, is some 264 miles 
long and 80 miles wide. It is said to be very 
productive, and to be gradually responding to 
the energetic administration of Japanese officials. 

On the third day the headlands of Luzon 

emerged into view, and we had the strange sen- 
37 



38 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

sation that we were nearing a remote, isolated 
fragment of the territory of the United States. 

The approach to Manila, after entering the 
picturesque bay, was inspiring. Nature has been 
lavish in enriching the city with a harbor of un- 
usual beauty. We passed under the lee of the 
rocky island of Corregidor, where the American 
fleet, in 1898, under command of the once famous 
Admiral Dewey, successfully evaded the sub- 
marine mines set by the Spaniards. Corregidor 
is now strongly fortified. The American navy 
yard is at Subig Bay. Many millions of money 
have been expended by the American government 
upon the military defenses of the Philippine Is- 
lands, since it unwarily set its feet into the snare 
of Asiatic politics. 

At Cavite we passed over purged waters, once 
reddened with human blood, when Dewey battered 
the Spanish fleet with crashing shells, and drove 
it down to watery death. Not a vestige of the 
hulks is now to be seen. 

PHILIPPINE PROBLEMS 

The destruction of the Spanish fleet sounded 
the death knell of tottering Spanish dominion in 
the Orient. Its palsied hand yielded the scepter 
to the American republic, a government unborn 
for nearly two hundred years after Magellan dis- 
covered the islands. The poor-but-proud Span- 
iard soon after the cession of the Philippine Is- 
lands sold the Caroline Islands to Germany; and 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 39 

the Castilian, once regnant over a great part of 
the New World, shorn of all his North American 
possessions, retreated as well from the Orient. 
For an indemnity of $20,000,000, the United 
States acquired all the rights of the Spanish 
crown to property in the Philippine Islands. 
Back to Spain went Spanish official and soldier; 
enter, the American soldier, official and merchant. 
The United States put on the poisoned shirt. 
After thirteen years of occupancy, of sober re- 
flection on the part of the American people ; after 
enthusiasm has slackened into languid indiffer- 
ence ; after the expenditure of unknown millions 
of money, the difficulties grow no less. 

The problem that confronted the McKinley 
administration was perplexing. We had broken 
down Spanish authority in the Philippines. The 
northern islands were reeking with an insurgent 
spirit against Spain before the arrival of Dew- 
ey's fleet. For centuries there had been the 
most acrimonious discord between the successive 
governors-general and the Roman Catholic arch- 
bishops, culminating years ago in the assas- 
sination of one of the governors. The execution 
of Razal, the Philippine author and patriot, had 
greatly embittered the insurrectionary party. 
The Friars had acquired millions of acres of the 
best land. The Spanish rule had not extended 
over Mindanao, the largest island of the archi- 
pelago, or over the Moros, a Mohammedan tribe. 
The population was a mixture of tribes of primi- 



40 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

tive peoples. No one could claim for them that 
they were capable of self-government. The 
Spaniards had done little for them in late years, 
but to oppress. Taxes were light, but the Span- 
ish rule was a game of graft. There were few 
public improvements. The port of Manila, fifty 
years agO' more important than Hong Kong or 
Shanghai, had sunk to a second or third rate city 
of the drowsy Orient. Into this hub-bub the United 
States entered, as one more Occidental adventurer, 
although unquestionably exploitation was not the 
motive of the McKinley administration. All 
human motives are complex ; an analysis is 
elusive. 

The strange result of a war begun for the pur- 
pose of freeing the neighboring island of Cuba 
from the intolerable misery of Spanish mis-rule, 
was the acquisition of an Oriental archipelago 
9,000 miles distant from Washington, with whose 
inhabitants the American people had not the 
slightest affinity or reciprocity. The plunge was 
made. Our country tentaculated to the Orient ; 
and for thirteen years we have been doing wise 
and foolish things in our far-distant colony. 
The Philippinos resisted, at the cost of many lives 
and much money on our part. We flung the 
Monroe doctrine to the winds ; seized the islands 
and held them by repression; fumbled and mud- 
dled; and have learned by costly experience how 
dearly the bubble of benevolent assimilation of an 
unwilling colony is bought. A few years of mili- 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 41 

tary satrapy, and then a civil government was 
established with Taft as the first governor. 
Slowly a re-moulding process has brought about 
orderly social conditions. Many mistakes have 
been made; there has happily been much of re- 
sidual good. To enter upon the islands was a 
comparatively j aunty affair ; to retreat from them 
was believed to involve national perfidy and dis- 
honor. So we are staying. 

What did the United States acquire.'' An 
archipelago numbering 3,141 islands, large and 
small; the most southerly being only five degrees 
north of the equator; with a territorial area of 
115,026 square miles i — unquestionably rich in 
agricultural potentialities ; a land where almost 
every kind of tropical fruits can be groWn; with 
valuable mineral deposits ; with a wealth of tim- 
berland; the forestry being one of the most valu- 
able assets of the islands. The nearest Asiatic 
port is Hong Kong, 628 miles distant. This dis- 
tance is negligible on the Pacific. Manila is 11,- 
600 miles from New York via Suez Canal; 9,752 
miles from Panama, via Honolulu. The islands 
are washed by stormy seas. They are subject to 
the periodicity of monsoons, yet, for a semi-trop- 
ical region are not unhealthful; the temperature 
ranges from 63 to 88 degrees. No case of sun- 
stroke has ever been reported. The heat is sul- 
try, rather than scorching. Swept by ocean 
gales, cleft into many islets by the penetrating 



42 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

tides, the islands escape the terrific heats of the 
Asian mainland. 

The population is about 8,000,000 souls of 
whom the Occidental, save the military garrison, 
is only a globule. 

Japan, with a smaller arable acreage and 
vastly less resources, sustains nearly 50,000,000 
people. The Philippine Islands largely remain a 
primitive wilderness. The plow has not fur- 
rowed a great part of its face; no human hand 
has dropped the germinating seed. Rich in ni- 
trogen and phosphorus, mellow with the chemical 
elements that produce generous crops, the land is 
baked by the sun, washed by torrential rains ; 
never crusted with glittering frosts or mantled 
by soft snows. Sometime the stomachs of alien 
peoples will demand a food supply to be sucked 
from its fertile breast. It awaits the touch of 
science, the magic of capital. 

PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS 

My stay has been short. My range of obser- 
vation has not extended beyond Manila and its 
environment. The city has some 450,000 in- 
habitants. It is at the mouth of the Pasig river, 
on the west coast of the island of Luzon. Few 
cities on the American continent have an older 
origin. Manila was founded in 1571, soon after 
the discovery of the islands by Ferdinand Magel- 
lan. The Pasig divides the city into two sec- 
tions — the old walled city in the south, the 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 43 

new business section in the north. The 
external aspect of the walled city is like that of 
the medieval cities of Italy and Spain. Here is 
the cathedral, gothic in architecture ; here the 
Jesuit church of St. Ignatius, with its wonderfully 
rich carvings of native wood, wood-carving being 
one of the arts in which the Philippinos excel. 
Here are old convents ; parochial schools ; bal- 
conied houses, with iron-grilled windows ; narrow 
streets ; low two-wheeled carts drawn by 
horned buffaloes ; scant sidewalks ; women with 
fluted waists of muslin or gaudy calicoes ; black- 
haired Spaniards sipping coff^ee or wines in the 
innumerable cafes ; scores and scores of the local 
vehicles ; carramatas and calesas, mostly drawn 
by tough little ponies — often cruelly beaten by 
the Filipino drivers. Fine gateways in the an- 
cient, mildewed wall open the old Spanish city 
(Intramuros) to the traveler. Some of the 
churches have a good deal of interest. Swarms of 
Spanish padres, bearded friars in white robes, 
walk in and out of the churches. What a sleepy, 
dreamy, out-of-the-age place Manila must have 
been in old Castilian days of pomp, ceremony, re- 
ligious processions and medieval customs. 

It must be said to the credit of the Americans 
that an immense work in hygiene, sanitation, road- 
building and public education has been accom- 
plished. There are now 434,000 children at 
school. The English language is taught in all 
of them, even in the parochial schools. This is 



44 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

all-important. The Philippino is stupid in learn- 
ing languages. After all these years of contact 
with the English language, it is rare that one 
finds a cabman or chauffeur who understands 
even a few words. 

It is in the rural districts that one sees the 
real Philippino communal life: huts of bamboo 
and straw, often raised on poles ; no windows, an 
occasional straw screen ; few gardens ; an entire 
absence of flowers or decorative shrubs ; life re- 
duced to its narrowest hmits ; a cluster of houses, 
then a field or wood; furniture as scant as in the 
mud huts of the Egyptian fellaheen; no sense 
of beauty, except in the feminine fondness for 
barbaric colors ; a torpid, pulseless life, with 
few ambitions. If this be the status of the Philip- 
pino within a radius of ten miles of Manila, what 
must it be in the wilderness? This race is the 
matrix out of which a new civilization must be 
created. Can it be done? 

American immigration into the islands has been 
slight. Our migratory energy seems to be ex- 
hausted at the Pacific shore-line. Of a popula- 
tion of 8,000,000, only 20,000 are Americans, 
including soldiery. The now dominant race 
makes but a slender ethnic background. More- 
over, will it preserve its vitality in a land of per- 
petual sunshine? It is said that about 1,000 
Americans have married native wives, and, with 
but rare instances, have wallowed back to the 
native slime. The marriage has caused degenera- 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 45 

tion to the husband; the wife retains her racial 
and social instincts. 

Some of the American soldiers have stayed on 
the islands and developed ability in business. In 
spite of all moral agencies of the church, and the 
Young Men's Christian Association, the private 
soldier is exposed tO' scorching temptations. 
Army and sailor life is proverbially careless. 
Dislocated from home influences, prevented by a 
monstrous military caste from social relations 
with the families of officers, the private is thrown 
back upon himself. The saloon, the card table, 
profligate relations with the native women, too 
often lure him to waste and disease. One cannot 
help sympathizing with the sturdy young chaps, 
erect and manly, as they walk by in their khaki 
uniforms. Pit-falls lie all around them, expatri- 
ated, with the wondering curiosity of youth, 
stripped of those moral forces and intimate re- 
straints which safeguard character. 

Except in the matter of military defense, the 
Philippine Islands now cost the United States 
nothing; the insular government sustains all other 
expenses. Wages have risen fourfold since the 
American occupancy. The tax levy has been 
greatly increased because of public improvements. 
An extensive marsh on the water-front of Manila 
has been converted into parks and business prop- 
erty. Another miasmatic marsh has been drained 
and graded into a public cemetery. A scientific 



46 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

warfare is going on against tuberculosis and other 
diseases. Hospitals have been established; in 
fact, a vein of humanism has run through the 
American administration. No fair equation of 
the merits and demerits of our occupancy can be 
made without taking into consideration the rotten- 
ness of the Spanish regime, its contemptuous dis- 
regard of the natives, and the honorable and 
humane efforts of American administrators, 
educators and physicians to uplift the 
native into a new and higher manhood. In tem- 
poral matters there is no question of a mighty ad- 
vance. Export trade has increased from $23,- 
000,000 to $39,000,000. There are now 444 
miles of steam railways. Hemp, sugar, rice, the 
cocoanut, india-rubber, coffee, tobacco and lum- 
ber are the main exports. All this is very much. 
It was a great work to give Manila a supply of 
pure water, and an ice plant ; to establish trolley 
and railway lines and to furnish many other 
agencies for comfort, health and enlightenment, 
Yet, under all these encouraging facts, lies 
the question: Have we a right to be here, and 
is it wise to stay in these far-flung islands.? 
Every question of morals or action is related to 
some other and larger question. Nothing stands 
alone. Is the genius of the American republic, 
already weighted by problems so serious and un- 
solvable as to shake it to its core, to be promoted 
by assuming such a needless responsibility.'' Why 
should the burdened American taxpayer be taxed 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 47 

to build forts and maintain any army and navy 
in the Philippines? We do not need the islands 
as a vent for over-population. The commercial 
return is so far inappreciable. The islands are 
a constant source of peril to us in the event of 
international embroilment. They would be our 
most vulnerable point of attack. Colonial ad- 
ministration is alien to the American genius. 
Putting the problem on its lowest plane, what 
does a nation that has no foreign commerce want 
of colonies? 

The North American Indian, the Hawaiian, 
has melted at our impact ; the Negro is still a 
social derelict; race prejudice never was more 
acute. Is the Philippino to fade out of human 
history at our deadly touch? 

There is an imperious moral problem under- 
lying our relation to this strange people. Can 
either race do the other good ; that is, good that 
endures ? 

Yet, to withdraw from the islands involves, 
perhaps, even greater difficulties. In his present 
state of enlightenment, the Philippino would make 
a grotesque work of government. It takes cen- 
turies to develop a people capable of sustaining 
free institutions. The Philippino dreads and dis- 
likes the Japanese; he believes Japanese control 
would repeat the cruelties and tyranny of Korea 
and Formosa. Moreover, the races are divided 
by inveterate antipathies. The MorO' is more 
vigorous than the Philippino. The tribes would 



48 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

be at each other's throats. Another possible 
owner might be Germany, but that power has 

be^taiHiiinnMMlipHHPJE^l. So the problem is many 
sided. 



VII 

HONG KONG 

Through the laburnum's dropping gold 
Rose the light shaft of Orient mold: 
And Europe's violets, faintly sweet. 
Purpled the moss-beds at its feet. 

Bryant. 

Dec. 10. — The heat was so intense in Ma- 
nila that most of the passengers were glad 
to leave the city. I left the Philippine Islands 
with mingled feelings. In a certain sense an 
American can take some pride when he sees the 
Stars and Stripes waving over an archipelago 
which has so many potentialities of agricultural, 
commercial and industrial wealth. In another 
sense the burden seems presumptuously unneces- 
sary, fraught with hidden possibilities of incredi- 
ble expenditure and international complications. 
No man can foresee the traps involved in our oc- 
cupancy. However, we Americans are a nation 
of optimists and probably will "muddle through 
somehow," as our English friends say. 

HONG KONG 

In the steamer's run of 628 miles from Manila 
49 



50 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

to Hiong Kong we struck the prevalent mon- 
soon, or rather the monsoon struck us. This is, 
at this season, a steadily blowing wind from the 
northeast, not dangerous, but powerful. The sea 
was churned by it and combed over our steamer, 
and quite a hub-bub of seasickness followed. In 
the morning of the second day we began to thread 
the chain of rocky islands that circumvallate the 
harbor of Hong Kong. The woodless rocks 
jutted into the air around us and, one by one, 
receded into our wake. The steamer came to a 
stop about a mile from shore. The gaunt rock 
on which the city of Victoria is built towered 
above us. At its base the Chinese settlements 
of some 300,000 people were clustered. On the 
flanks of the hills are the residences of the Eng- 
lish officers and merchants ; also the barracks of 
the soldiers ; the English cathedral ; the summer 
home of the governor general being almost at the 
summit. As a whole, the island of Hong Kong is 
scant of vegetation, but an occasional viUa has a 
flower-spangled lawn, and there are some attract- 
ive parks. Both the Protestant and Catholic 
cemeteries have been laid out with fine eff^ects in 
landscape gardening. There is also an elaborate 
botanical garden. 

Hong Kong is one of the most beautiful of 
Asiatic cities. This statement means that, ex- 
cept in certain portions of the Chinese quarters, 
it is not Asiatic. Perhaps, the blending of the 
two types, imposed upon what was once a barren 



HONG KONG 51 

rock, gives the city its charm. The outside of 
the island faces the China Sea, with its shimmer- 
ing color; the inside is on the edge of one of the 
finest harbors of the world. 

Hong Kong is a strongly fortified city. Eng- 
land has spent immense sums in protecting it. 
Obtained by a cession from China in 1842, the 
English control has been further extended by a ces- 
sion of a 20-mile strip of mainland. 

The most interesting local excursion is to the 
Peak, or summit of the hill; reached by a tram- 
way. The flagstaff and signal station are 1823 
feet above the sea-level. Here a signal is given 
by a cannon ("the bark of the dog") of the ar- 
rival of a steamer, and by bird-cage drums of the 
approach of a typhoon. 

From the Peak a magnificent panorama of 
mountain, bay, ocean and of the terraced city is 
had by the visitor. In the crystal air the eye 
catches a diversity of charm rarely seen. Across 
the bay, we see the sandy Kowloon Peninsula, 
once a marsh, now a busy suburb. Ships of all 
nations ride the harbor. The gorges in the hills 
have been utilized for reservoirs of water; one, 
the Pokfulcum, having a storage of 68,000,000 
gallons. 

The main water supply of the big city comes 
from the Tytam reservoir; storage capacity, 
312,000,000 gallons. As there is no natural 
water supply, the inhabitants are thus safe- 
guarded from a water famine. 



52 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

No horses are allowed on the islands ; we saw 
but a few automobiles. All the carrying work 
is done by Chinese coolies. Men and women are 
the beasts of burden. Human beings are a drug. 
Wages are very low, but are slowly rising. The 
Asiatic is not immune from the desire for high 
wages; and the rise will be steady. A messen- 
ger of a large bank told me that his wages are 
$7.50 per month. 

As everywhere in China, there is confusion in 
the currency. The silver standard is the Mex- 
ican dollar, worth, in round numbers, about fifty 
cents of our currency. The tourist invariably 
finds that the rates of exchange work against 
him. He gets cash at one standard, buys at one 
higher. Bankers and transportation companies 
seem to act on the principle, — what is the tourist 
here for, unless to be fleeced.? His money drib- 
bles like melting snow. 

About ninety miles above Hong Kong, on the 
delta of the Chukiang or Pearl river, is the an- 
cient, walled city of Canton, the commercial me- 
tropolis of South China. As this city was in- 
volved in political confusion, which gives a sense 
of unsecurity to the tourist ; and, as on a former 
tour, I visited other large Chinese cities, I did 
not visit it. There is a certain monotonousness 
in Asiatic cities, especially the Chinese. They 
are mostly alike: of a stereotyped pattern. 

The mingling of the Occident and Orient in 



HONG KONG 63 

Hong Kong offers a chance for sociological re- 
flection. The English administration has en- 
forced sanitation and there is little of that dis- 
gusting smell with which the congested streets 
of the large native cities reek. Moreover, the 
building laws preclude such fire-traps and noi- 
some hovels as one sees in the old cities, with their 
grim alleys, putrid streets and ruck. The Chi- 
nese in Hong Kong are fairly well housed. Yet 
the native character is shown everywhere; the 
undulating street life; dragons, streamers and 
lanterns; everybody in the evening, gossiping, 
smoking in the crowded thoroughfares ; women 
dressed in trousers ; babies strapped to their 
backs; peddlers and little booths lining whole 
streets ; at the theaters, bands of native musi- 
cians beating their drums and tom-toms, making 
screeching noises, with nO' sense of harmony. 
To the Chinese, music and noise mean the same 
thing. The jinrikisha carriage or sedan-chair is 
everywhere: the latter carried by two men. Few 
work in the hot sun, except the tugging coolies. 
A hardy, muscular breed of out-door workers, 
they take life with Oriental fatalism. There is 
intense contest for a job. Let a tourist emerge 
from a hotel or shop and a crowd of chattering 
coolies gathers around him like a flight of crows. 
He is pushed, pulled, begged, until he drops into 
a chair, and then the disappointed ones disperse 
to hunt some other victim. 

However, in Japan and China, the tourist 



54 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

learns to like the chattering coolies ; greedy and 
dirty as some, perhaps most of them, are. They 
have the gamy flavor of primitive life. 

Hong Kong has thousands of shops. The 
products of the world are swept in here for sale. 
Not all the dealers are Chinese ; some Americans 
and Englishmen are merchants. The sly Ar- 
menian, the Hindoo, the Arab, the Jew, are here 
also. The art of window decoration is as well 
understood as in America. 

Hong KTong is policed by Hindoo Sikhs. In 
their turbans and uniforms, they make a pictur- 
esque police force. 

What a sight a Chinese city presents in the 
evening to a stranger from the New World. 
Such a surging, billowy wave of humanity. 
What a babel of noises. Life is lived under the 
eyes of other men. Privacy, at least in social 
life, is not in the Orient. All dress alike ; ges- 
ticulate alike. Men ply their trades; women 
comb their hair in the streets. Most of the 
Chinese in Hong Kong live in high apartment 
houses with balconies in front ; but the street is 
preferred to the balcony. 

China is a sleeping giant, unconscious of its 
powers. Pillaged by Occidental nations, abused 
and stamped upon, it is slowly coming to a con- 
sciousness of the causes of its weakness. Per- 
haps in the end, it may better the instructions of 
its spoliators. Out of the discords of our day 
may come a harmony with what is good 



HONG KONG 55 

and permanent in Western thought and life. 

I hear the student clangor of Hong Ko'ng 
streets ; discordant, noisy, meaningless, the un- 
intelligible chatter of a great submerged part of 
the human race. It seems a voice from the un- 
derworld ; as if a race of brownies had sprung 
up out of the earth, emerging from subterranean 
darkness into a world which knows them not. 
Like the Roman gladiator of old, the Chinaman, 
the Hindoo or other Asiatic, enters the arena and 
bows ; he curls and abases himself. When will 
he make his thrust? We will hope that the 
higher humanism of our day will avert sword- 
thrusts between the West and the East. The 
sword is now in the hands of the West ; but, like 
the duel of Hamlet and Laertes, it may change 
hands. 

The Orient has been cruel ; so has the Occident. 
The Westerner has done many cruel things in 
the East, but not an appreciable fraction of what 
the East has inflicted upon itself. Once, the 
whole world was cruel; human history reeks with 
carnage. We know something of the history of 
Europe, but very little of that of Asia. If 
known, it would be incarnadined in blood. Hap- 
pily the pages are lost. 

All the building materials of the houses and 
barracks on the hills in Hong Kong were carried 
up on the shoulders of coolies or drawn up by 
them. There is no present way, however, of 



56 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

avoiding this use of man, outgrown in the Occi- 
dent, in Oriental countries, except to a limited 
extent. The replacement of men by machinery 
would work great distress. Even to feed horses 
would be undue expense. The human back will 
be used until a diversity of callings gradually is 
developed; until wages rise; until Orientals are 
trained to the manipulation of machinery and 
their economic needs are greater. Meanwhile, 
Asia, like Issachar, will crouch beneath its bur- 
dens. 

THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 

This is, of course, the absorbing theme in the 
Orient. I have met many people familiar with 
the present state of things in China ; and not one 
who did not sympathize with the revolution. 

The Chinese empire bulges out like a great belly 
on the map of Asia. Its people are held in uni- 
versal respect by foreigners. It has resources 
of incalculable value. Its territory is immense. 
As a race, the Chinese are muscular, thrifty, in- 
dustrious and laborious. As Occidental races 
move further and further away from manual la- 
bor, China may be the supply-fountain of muscle- 
workers for races who no longer use their muscles. 

The present awakening of China is one of the 
most significant events of the century. It is big 
with results for the whole human race. Its striv- 
ings will extend beyond its border. China now 
needs statesmen of the first order. Now is the era 



HONG KONG 57 

for a Chinese Bismarck. Will he come ? The sleepy 
empire is getting its house in order for a new 
alignment of its mighty forces : — ^not for to-day 
or to-morrow, but for the unknown future. It is 
in the birth-throes of a new order. Steam, elec- 
tricity and quick transportation have remoulded 
the industrial order in Europe and America. It 
is their nerveless hand that has pulled down 
thrones, compelled the education of the masses, 
and let in the light. The moment China broke 
from this isolation of ages a change in its petri- 
fied conservatism was inevitable. It is now com- 
ing. 

STEAMER TRAVEL 

At Hong Kong we left the Pacific Mail 
steamer, which had been our floating home for 
more than a month. It was quite a wrench to 
sever so many ties of pleasant companionship. 
Sea travel brings passengers into close relations. 
There is a community of interest ; a chance for 
what Tennyson calls "heart affluence of discur- 
sive talk" ; there is a certain weighing of person- 
ality ; a balance is soon struck between those ac- 
quaintanceships which are but as sea-foam and 
those which ripen into friendship. 

Oriental travel allures many types of charac- 
ter. There is a great range from the fresh 
graduate going out to the Philippines to join 
the constabulary to the serious-minded mission- 
ary, the purse-proud millionaire, the money-get- 



58 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

ting trader, the curious tourist. Each type has 
its distinctive interest. It has been pleasant to 
compare our observations of the wonderfully in- 
teresting' cities we have visited; to reach an equi- 
librium of judgment; to sift the fleeting from the 
transient. Nothing is more helpful than a ra- 
tional interpretation of calm opinion ; its residual 
value is that it is the pathway to truth. 

Now we are on a steamer of the Peninsular and 
Oriental Line, for Singapore ; under the British 
flag. The turbaned Goanese has succeeded the 
Chinese as sailor and steward. Are England and 
America ceasing to breed sailors.? It looks so; 
or will the sea, like the farm, allure sturdy youth 
only when sailor and farm life are re-adjusted 
to the conditions which control mechanical trades .? 
For the present they are dislocated from the com- 
pelling stream of industrial tendencies. 

December 12. — We are sailing near the coast of 
Anam. The heated winds are breathing the hot 
edge of the lower tropics. Steamer-life drawls 
and pants. Every sparkle of frost has melted 
from the air; human life also melts in the caul- 
dron. There is no working-day, except for the 
Goanese sailor. He moves noiselessly about the 
steamer. At the muster yesterday all wore white 
tunics and red turbans. Their jet black eyes 
and hair were an artistic relief to the white and 
red ; a background of ebony set in silver and ruby. 



HONG KONG 59 

The East is the home of color. It riots on sea 
and land ; on bird and animal. Man catches the 
call for decorative pigments and daubs body and 
clothes in the hues which he finds on earth and in 
the sky. 

I am thinking in review of the past five weeks ; 
especially of the strangers whose paths converged 
with mine for a few days ; now faded into the 
ghost-land of memory. We were cast up to- 
gether, a few bubbles on the surface of things. 

"So on the sea of life^ alas^ 

Man meets man, meets and quits again." 



VIII 
FROM HONG KONG TO SINGAPORE 

And what if Trade sow cities 

Like shells along the shore. 
And thatch with towns the prairie broad 

With railroads ironed o'er? 
They are but sailing foam-bells 
Along Thought's causing stream, 

Emerson. 

The run from Hong Kong to Singapore led 
us into the steaming tropics. The dining-room 
was kept comfortable by the use of punkahs, os- 
cillating fans of cloth, attached to beams ; the 
motor power being furnished by three of our 
Goanese stewards, who pulled the strings that 
kept them in motion. Steamer-life is very un- 
conventional, and we soon found congenial com- 
panionship. Such is the moving show of life. 

After the first day, some part of the Asian 
mainland, or some island, was always in sight ; 
generally of high, bare cliffs. 

The heat mounted higher and higher. We felt 
the calorific furnace of the mainland. 

SINGAPORE 

On the jnorjiing of December 13 we awoke to 
60 



HONG KONG TO SINGAPORE 61 

find ourselves in the fine harbor of Singapore, one 
of the best in Asia. After five days on the China 
Sea, the low-lying shores, fringed with nodding 
trees, were a grateful sight. A crowd of jinriki- 
shas was awaiting us. 

As we rode into the city, our first impression 
was of the excellence of the roads ; miles and 
miles of the best macadam. All things had a 
tropical aspect. The location of Singapore, 
about one degree above the equator, at the end 
of the Malayan Peninsula, raked by solar heat, 
combed by the monsoons, makes its reputation as 
one of the hottest cities of Southern Asia. Yet 
we suiFered little discomfort here. The hotels 
face the water ; are sprawled over a large area ; 
the sleeping rooms make almost half a dozen of 
those in some Parisian hotels ; they are provided 
with electric fans. Every chamber has an outer 
balcony. 

Singapore, now a city of some 200,000 in- 
habitants, is a monument to the prevision and 
administrative skill of its founder. Sir Stamford 
Rafiles ; one of the many administrators of the 
first order, whose ability has built up the great 
British- Asiatic empire. His name is perpetuated 
by a hotel and boulevard. 

Singapore, like Hong Kong, is on an island. 
It is one of the most frequented ports of entry 
in Eastern Asia ; the seat of an immense com- 
merce. We saw hundreds of vessels in the har- 
bor; a solitary one carrying the American flag. 



62 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

The crafts ranged all the way from the junks and 
sampans up to great steamers which plow all the 
oceans of the world. 

Cosmopolitan, indeed, is Singapore ; a gather- 
ing-ground and melting-furnace of the flotsam 
of human kind that drifts into an Asiatic seaport. 
The substratum of the population is the Malay. 
The muscle and brain of Singapore are the 
Chinese ; thousands and thousands of them furnish 
the steady, working, element in the city. Many 
of them are undersized and hollow-chested. The 
'rickshaw coolie leads a short life. It is said that 
few of them reach forty-five years. A China- 
man's age is an unknown thing. We have seen 
scarcely one gray-headed Chinaman in the toss- 
ing, tumultuous rout that seethes in the streets. 
Small pay, dreary work, scant food seem to be 
the lot of most of the Chinamen. Yet, as in Ma- 
nila, some of them here are very wealthy. 

No scene on a theatrical stage can present 
anything like the amazing picture which one sees 
in riding through the Chinese quarters in Singa- 
pore. Excepting that the streets are wide and 
clean and the homes moderately substantial, the 
moving, human picture is like those seen in the 
great cities of China proper : — color, bunting, 
streamers, lanterns, open shops, endless stands 
and booths; gabbling, jamming myriads of the 
great human menagerie. Not one drunken man 
was to be seen. Almost every conceivable article 



HONG KONG TO SINGAPORE 63 

of food and clotliing is exhibited in the flaunting 
shops. All the clerks are men ; there seem to be 
no women in Chinese commercial life, unlike the 
Japanese. Three-fourths of the crowds on the 
street were men. 

All the mechanical work in the shops seemed to 
be hand labor. The Celestial is slow to adopt 
machinery. In a shop there are five times the 
number of clerks to be seen in one of its size in 
Europe or America. Men drag carts laden with 
heavy loads through the streets ; sometimes as 
many as thirty or forty will act as human horses. 
As they pull and tug they utter in unison a gut- 
tural squeak. What a burden-bearer the China- 
man is. Nowhere can men be seen who do the 
grossest drudgery with more cheerfulness. He 
has not yet imbibed the modern evasion from 
work; he shies at nothing because it is muscle 
wearing. The merchant class, the bankers and 
money changers have the easeful life. 

Above the rip and roar of this ocean of hu- 
manity, the weltering hordes of Asia, the bar- 
barians of darkest Africa and the other millions 
of submerged races — the toilers in the festering 
cities of Europe and America — rises the acute 
thought: Can this status last? As the govern- 
ments of the world are surely becoming democ- 
ratized; as authority is to rest in the masses, will 
the evolution of the homeless and unfed into a 
higher social consciousness — ^which is now unal- 



64. GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

terably on the way — ^be heralded by orderly prog- 
ress ; or will "the great aeon sink in blood" and 
progress be volcanic? Problems vast in their 
sweep, terrible in their unknown potencies, are 
before the coming generation. Will the law of 
love or that of hate and greed prevail? 

Even in the British colonial possessions there 
is no equality in the flow of peoples from one col- 
ony to another. British citizenship is meaning- 
less when the Hindu or Chinese knocks at the 
door of Canada or Australia. The European 
governments, — and now our own in the Philip- 
pines, — has appropriated every available bit of 
land where the surplus of China, Japan and In- 
dia might swarm in millions, reclaim the wilder- 
ness, coax the surly or juicy soil into harvests, 
and establish civil government where brooding 
silences prevail in the forests and on the plains 
now inhabited only by wild beasts or wilder men. 
The Occident has caught the Orient by the 
throat, Siberia, Australia, the Malayan archi- 
pelago, the Philippines, all the natural homes of 
some of the Asiatic races, have been grabbed by 
one nation or another, and the key turned on 
them. This may go on for ages ; or by some 
cataclysm in history, the huge fabric of com- 
mercial greed and spurious philanthropy known 
as colonization, may be shattered into a bubble. 

Yet, as an optimist, I believe that good is 
slowly evolving from the chaos. Probably in the 




HONG KDNG TO SINGAPORE 65 

matter of food, housing, clothes and wages the 
Oriental was never so well off as now. Except 
\in the Congo State and possibly in some of the 
Dutch colonies, no cruelty to the native is per- 
mitted. Flogging and slavery and enforced la- 
bor are finally a thing of the past. The con- 
science of the world has been touched by sym- 
pathy and a sense of justice. The Asiatic would 
fare worse at the hand of his native despots than 
under the Occidental rulers. 

INDUSTRIES 

The Malay Peninsula is now prosperous. 
Great fortunes have been made, especially in rub- 
ber. An Englishman told me of one Chinaman 
who made $1,000,000 in one year by the sale of 
his rubber plantations and product ; and of an- 
other Chinaman who suddenly became wealthy, 
and childishly displayed his vanity by having 
three front teeth extracted, and inserting in their 
place in his jaw three large diamonds. This 
waste of money was slightly more idiotic than the 
profligacy of some of our American sports of 
millionaires, with their monkey banquets and los- 
ing ventures in gambling houses. Idiocy is con- 
fined to no one race. Even the sober Chinese folk 
have their due share of opium fiends, gamblers, 
thieves, pirates and degenerates. 

It is said that 45,000,000 rubber trees have 
been planted in the Malay Federated States. It 
takes about four years in this climate for the tree 



66 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

to grow to a size when it yields its sap. If the 
present price of rubber remains constant, enor- 
mous riches are before this region. Already one 
hears the almost universal cry for more labor. 
Wherever we go there is a labor-hunt. 

This acute demand for manual labor is benefi- 
cent to the Oriental. It gives an enhanced value 
to his muscle. It is in the line of industrial 
progress. It links him to all-pervading human 
needs. 

As cities like Singapore are sewer-vents of hu- 
manity and attract the drainage of many races, 
they present social problems of much difficulty. 
The shadow of the under-world is cast over cer- 
tain sections of every large Asiatic city. The 
most casual observer, who rides through the 
streets in the quarters where the natives are seg- 
regated, cannot fail to observe the shameful pro- 
jection of Japanese women into this nether side 
of life. No doubt the English government does 
,ij^-^^%nA-V-^-- ' ^^ ^^ ^^^ power to preserve public decency and 
* ^f4r promote a more healthful morality; but, in deal- 
^'''- ing with the un-morality of Asia, the slime of 

many ages cannot be wiped off in one or two 
generations. Moreover, the European more 
often descends to the Asiatic's level than attempts 
to lift the native into Christian ethics. 

December 17. — Around me now flows the rip- 
pling Malayan sea. I have left behind the pano- 



HONG KONG TO SINGAPORE 67 

rama of the streets of Singapore: the turbaned 
peddlers : the sly money-changers : the shifty 
jewel-merchants: the clever juggler: the snake- 
charmer, piping his harsh music into the ears of 
the hideous reptile, lashing him with towels, and 
even fondling him. The noisy hub-bub of the 
streets fades away. Their roar is now succeeded 
by the croon of the ocean. What a change : from 
articulate to inarticulate noise: from the jigger- 
ing crowds to the immeasurable wastes of the com- 
passing sea. 



IX 

JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 

The isle is full of noises, 
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. 

. And then in dreaming, 
The clouds, methought, would open, and shew riches 
Ready to drop upon me. 

Shakespeare. 

THE FAR-INDIES 

One who has not looked into the matter has 
no idea of the extent and value of the Dutch East 
Indies. Little Holland, a mere dot on the map 
of Europe, snugged behind the dikes, fighting for 
its very existence against the encroachments of 
the North Sea, is small indeed, when put in com- 
parison with its vast insular possessions in the 
far-away Southern Pacific. The total area of 
the Dutch East Indies is 587,370 square miles ; 
their population is 40,500,000. Of this multi- 
tude of yellow faces, the Island of Java is the 
home of some 35,000,000 people, while its area is 
50,789 square miles. That is, its territory is 
about that of England, or a little more than the 
state of New York. The population is thus 

about 594 to the square mile. 
68 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 69 

A comparison of the area of Java with that 
of others of the large islands on the globe is in- 
teresting. The area of all the British Isles is 
84,098 square miles ; of Cuba, 45,900, or nearly 
3000 less than Java; of Newfoundland, 42,728; 
of Madagascar, 228,500 ; of the New Zealand 
Islands, 102,383. 

The island of New Guinea has an area of 298,- 
160 square miles; about one-half of it belongs to 
Holland ; Borneo has 288,136. In addition to 
these large islands in the Malayan Archipelago, 
Holland owns Celebes, the Moluccas, or Spice 
Islands, and many others of smaller size and less 
importance; also the large neighboring island of 
Sumatra, 

Surely this is a magnificent Oriental domain 
for the little Dutch fist to hold in subjection. 
The history of the Dutch conquest is a romance. 
It began with a commercial expedition from Am- 
sterdam to Java in 1595. Up to that time the 
island trade had been in the hands of the Portu- 
guese, from whom the Dutch wrenched it, little 
by little. All that Portugal now holds is 
a part of the island of Timor, which the Dutch 
are trying to buy. There were wars with Eng- 
land, collisions with Spain ; but for about 
a century the Dutch have been in exclusive con- 
trol. I 

Of the population of Java, 65,000 are Euro- 
peans ; 296,000 Chinese; about 20,000 Arabs; 
the rest natives. 



70 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

THE ISLAND 

Enough of figures and comparisons. Let Java 
stand alone. The island is its own witness. The 
splendor of its scenery, the riotous luxuriance of 
its vegetation, the spawning fertility of its soil 
spring from the one cause which attaches dis- 
comfort to the visitor, — tropical heat. This is 
the one drawback to the Northerner. He must 
learn to adjust himself to a manner of living, 
whether of house or clothing, which has but one 
purpose, — relief from heat. 

The Malayan Archipelago is cinctured by a 
girdling chain of volcanoes. Geologists tell us 
that these islands, also Australia, New Zealand 
and Tasmania, were once connected with the 
mainland of Asia. Ripped apart by eartquakes : 
the vacuum filled by the in-flowing seas : scorched, 
blistered, made and made over by the excreta of 
volcanoes : their present form is only temporary. 
Earthquakes and volcanoes have not exhausted 
their titanic energies. On Java there are forty 
volcanoes, some of which, since the Dutch occu- 
pancy, have done fearful work. 

PHYSICAIi ASPECTS 

There are 1500 species of trees on Java, of a 
height of more than fifteen feet. The whole num- 
ber of plant species is about 6000. Some trees 
reach a height of 150 feet ; a few species even 
180 feet. Some of the trunks are gigantic, send- 
ing out branches at from 60 to 90 feet above the 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 71 

roots. More luxuriant foliage could hardly be 
imagined. The monstrous trees do not reign un- 
challenged in the fetid solitudes of a Javanese 
forest. Myriads of insects are spawned in the 
swamps, each drawing its life from tree, shrub or 
some animated creature. A tumultuous under- 
growth of creepers and parasitical vines springs 
from the fecund soil. They jump on the giant 
trees, strangle them in a choking coil, suck the 
juices from their victim. So the life-and-death 
struggle goes on for years, ending in the vascu- 
lar tissue and sap of the tree being absorbed by 
its remorseless enemy. The vegetable kingdom 
is as cruel as the animal. Each creature feeds 
on the life of another in an endless circle of 
death; and thus life succeeds life. All is vicari- 
ous. 

Never have I seen such luxuriant vegetal life, 
except possibly in the West India Islands ; and 
here it is on an even larger scale. As the Ma- 
layan Archipelago runs from six degrees north 
to ten degrees south latitude, the most of the 
islands are in the southern hemisphere ; and the 
temperature is very uniform. Java is a land of 
unbroken sunshine ; snow and frost never invade 
it. Created from volcanic excreta, its igneous 
soil has been larded by age-long deposits of vege- 
table detritus and animal decay; roasted by solar 
heat; washed by the juices of the sky; soaked by 
sea-winds, until a rich mold of inexhaustible 



72 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

richness has been spread like a cream over most 
of the island. The ashy downs, the slag of vol- 
canic sulphurous fumes, are devoid of vegetation, 
except creepers ; the fertility crawls up the hills 
and mountain sides. It is not uncommon to see 
these cultivated to their summits. 

Java is one magnificent garden ; one wave of 
everlasting green ; one sweeping pageant of 
color ; a perfume-box of unadulterated odors ; a 
chorus of bird-choirs, sea-winds, swaying trees, 
chirping insects ; a land vocal in melody, as well 
as a picture gallery of all that ministers to a 
sense of beauty. 

We approached the island from Singapore. 
Our invasion of Java was attended with difSculty. 
The steamers were generally crowded ; the fares 
were unusually high. We landed at the port of 
Batavia. The voyage was pleasant, indeed. We 
skirted the coast of Sumatra, which is much 
larger than Java, but thinly inhabited and less 
developed. We sailed for hours on the straits 
between Sumatra and Banka. The tin mined in 
Banka is world-renowned; an immense amount has 
been exported, and the mines are still operated. 
It is said that Banka tin brings as high a price 
as silver bullion. 

Early on the first morning after leaving Singa- 
pore we crossed the equator. The steamer made 
no thump or scrape. The equator gave no sig- 
nal. We glided into the southern hemisphere, 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 73 

unheralded. It was the first time that I had ever 
had the experience of waking up on that imag- 
inary circle of the world's surface which bisects 
it at an equal distance from the north and south 
poles. 

We had found the little Dutch steamer very 
comfortable. Its officers were most courteous; 
the softly-moving sailors and stewards were 
Javanese. The nights were hot, and most of the 
passengers slept on deck. The Southern Cross 
shone from the sky over the melting ocean every 
morning. 

It was on the Dutch steamer that we had our 
first experience with a form of serving food com- 
mon in the Dutch Indian colonies. It is called 
the "rice-table." With a change in some of the 
articles of food, it is like the noon meal served 
on Finnish and Scandinavian steamers. There 
the main ingredient is fish, as I recollect it ; here 
it is rice. The bare-footed waiters serve it in 
profound silence. One does not hear even a rus- 
tle from their garments. All wear a Javanese 
sarong (skirt) and headkerchief. This costume 
is universal among the Javanese. Even in 
schools every boy wears this headgear. Some- 
times on the street it is surmounted by a large 
bamboo hat to protect the head from heat. 

The "rice-dish" is a gastronomic wonder. It 
is built on a basis of rice and chicken ; to these 
have been added flesh and fish, cooked in manifold 



74 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

forms ; many kinds of relishes, spiced fruits, cur- 
ries, eg'gs, pickled vegetables, palm-shoots, and 
most characteristic of all, "sambals," made from 
the liver of fowls. All are highly seasoned, es- 
pecially with cayenne pepper. Probably more 
than twenty different dishes made into "sambals" 
are served at one "rice-table." They are eaten 
with a spoon and fork. The connoisseur mashes 
all of them on his plate, slobbers the food with 
the sauces, sprinkles the seasonings, and lets them 
slip down his gullet to his stomach, in a horrible 
chaos. The best part of this confused meal is 
the delicious fruit that follows : generally man- 
goes or mangosteens, pineapples, small Javanese 
oranges, and others, the names of which are un- 
known to me. 

BATAVIA AND WELTEVREDEN 

Batavia was founded by the Dutch, on the 
ruins of the native city of Jakatra, in 1691. It 
is in many ways interesting, and apparently is 
well governed. Its residential suburb, Weltevre- 
den, has spacious streets, many fine buildings and 
all the external improvements of a modem city. 

After spending two days in Batavia and Wel- 
tevreden, we left behind their canals ; their varie- 
gated street life ; their boulevards, lined with 
tamarinds and Madagascan flame-trees ; their in- 
numerable palms, and trim Dutch gardens. Per- 
haps the most novel thing was the canals ; in their 
muddy, stagnant waters women are washing 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 75 

clothes all day long, pounding them on the stone 
walls and steps and then spreading them on the 
banks to dry ; also all day long children are bath- 
ing, men swimming or fishing; slow boats groan- 
ing their way along. Like the sampan (boat) 
life in China, canal-life and river-life are a 
marked feature in Java. The culture of fish in 
ponds is a considerable industry in the lowland 
plains. 

Batavia has about 116,000 inhabitants. The 
bulk of the people are Malayans. This name is 
applied to numerous tribes in Southeastern Asia 
and to most of the population of the many 
islands. Centuries ago, these people emigrated 
from the mainland. In Java they are divided 
into many provincial tribes, such as the Bantam- 
ese, who people Bantam, a large province of West 
Java; the Soedanese, who live mainly in the 
Preangor province ; the Madurese, in East Java. 
Some of these tribes are more primitive and cling 
to old customs more tenaciously than others. 
Nearly all are Mohammedans in religion. In 
every town there is a mosque. 

BEITENZORG 

The railroad ride from Batavia to Beitenzorg 
was through a lovely country; a network of roll- 
ing hills, dense forests, gentle rivers, and cosy 
villages. The town is at an elevation of about 
700 feet above Batavia. 

The main interest in Beitenzorg is the famous 



76 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

Botanical Garden, which is said to be the finest 
in the world. It was founded in 1817. One who 
is not a specialist in arboriculture or horticulture 
derives only a limited pleasure from a superficial 
view of the thousands of specimens. It requires 
a trained eye and disciplined brain to detect the 
interesting distinctions in plant-life, so rich and 
gorgeous. The most fascinating part of the 
garden was the large collection of orchids. Java 
is the home of a great many species of this 
strange floAver. It is found in the forests ; creeps 
into the joints of trees; clusters in the dense 
swamps ; and effloresces in many odd shapes and 
colors. 

The crown of little Beitenzorg is Mount Salak, 
rising in impressive silences, topping the adja- 
cent hills and smiling upon the restful valleys. 
The mountain is not lonesome ; it is clothed in 
forests and gardens to its very top ; hundreds of 
pastures of shimmering green. All around its 
base wave thousands of palm trees, girdling the 
rice-farms in the valleys. Stand still for a mo- 
ment : there is a chorus of inarticulate voices ; 
the whisper of the winds ; the rush of the palms ; 
the tossing of the ripening crops. 

The homes of the peasantry are basket cages ; 
fragile as toy-houses. Here a sluggish life is 
droned away. The people flutter in and out of 
them like the shadowy figures of a pantomime. 
No life could be simpler; stripped of all intel- 
lectual effort; the river is their bath-tub; their 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 77 

dishes are of palm and plantain leaf; their food 
curry and rice; few wants, few gratifications. 
Their labor is in the fields, and in the rudest 
forms of mechanical trades ; few tools ; little skill ; 
everything so rude and primitive. 

GARGET 

Garoet is an excellent place in which to ob- 
serve native industries. Here is made the musical 
instrument called the anklong, of bamboo wood, 
turned into framework, set to different keys ; 
when shaken by the hand it emits a flute-like mel- 
ody. Strolling bands of musicians roam through 
the streets and hotel grounds. While some are 
playing, others, boys and young women, perform 
the native dances. 

Dancing is a great Javanese amusement. The 
natives have a higher sense of musical melody 
and harmony than the Chinese or Japanese. 
Most of the dances are formal ; the hands and fin- 
gers are used as well as the feet. The girl danc- 
ers put on a helmet and mask. One of the mu- 
sicians recites some poem or song, which the 
dancers act. There is no immodesty in the danc- 
ing. It is rather a ceremonial. 

Another strange pastime is the marionette or 
puppet dancing. An orchestra plays on several 
kinds of instruments. A leader recites some al- 
most interminable song or poem, with his feet on 
cymbals, which crash as he strikes them. He 



78 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

has at his side a large assortment of marionette 
dolls, some clothed as dancers ; others as war- 
riors or princes. He holds them in his hands 
and by pulling strings the mimic creatures per- 
form all sorts of antics. This childish perform- 
ance is highly pleasing to the natives; it has de- 
scended as a national inheritance. 

Garoet is a sweet little hill-town. It is the 
center of the sarong batik industry. This re- 
quires considerable art. The gray cloth is im- 
ported. It passes into the hands of a designer 
who traces the outlines of the figures. Then the 
women paint it with dyes drawn from the native 
trees. The workers sit cross-legged beside a fire 
usually made in a basin on a pile of stones ; in 
this the pigments seethe and are mixed. The dye 
is taken upon the point of a copper instrument, 
by which it is daubed on the cloth. Some of the 
designs and schemes of color are quite attractive. 
The women chew the betelnut as they work; their 
teeth are discolored black. Fairly good wages 
are paid in the sarong batik industry — about fifty 
cents a day in our currency. 

Garoet is a center for excursions into the hills. 
They are made in carriages. The rides are more 
interesting from their touch with primitive vil- 
lage life than from any special beauty in the lake 
and hot springs. The most popular trip is to 
the volcano Papandayan. This volcano emits 
sulphurous jets, and ejects spouting water and 
mud. 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 79 

The last eruption of Papandayan was in 1772, 
when 3,000 lives were lost. 

One of the most charming effects in Garoet is 
the sublime sunsets. The town is set in a valley, 
rimmed by high hills, rich in foliage. The drop- 
ping sun seems to gild the clouds with its richest 
colors as it sinks behind the hills. Heaps of 
clouds are hued like fairy palaces ; color succeeds 
to color, deepening in intensity and assuming 
endless forms. The eye of day is shut in radiant 
glory over a breathless world. After this gor- 
geous pageant, night shuts down in impenetrable 
darkness. 

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT 

The Dutch colonial government is a mixture of 
imperialism, paternalism and socialism. The sev- 
eral provinces are governed by Presidents. The 
natives have no share in government. A Nether- 
land-Indies Council in Batavia is the central 
authority for all the Dutch East Indian colonies. 
Certain municipal officers are elected in the cities 
by vote of the property holders. All courts of 
justice, where laws are administered, are Dutch. 
The Governor-General, appointed by the crown 
of Holland, has great power. One of his duties 
is to protect the helpless natives from oppression. 

"O happy farmers, if they only knew their 
blessings," said Virgil. Think of a nation of 35,- 
000,000 people which has no politics and no re- 
ligious questions. No "bosses ;" no smooth, ly- 



80 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

ing, truth-perverting political schemers and 
demiagogues ; no caucuses, conventions or elec- 
tions ; no parties, greedy for office ; often insin- 
cere, quite generally ignorant that the spurious 
issues with which they are cajoling the voters are 
dead as Julius Caesar ; no brawling, brazen pre- 
tense of "loving the workingman" just before elec- 
tion; no sordid, frantic scramble after offices 
often over-paid ; none of the hypocrisy, flare, hum- 
bug and glozing deceit which are spread over the 
meaningless commonplaces of party platforms : — 
From these, the simple-minded natives are exempt. 
The Javanese bows his head and lets others 
govern him. The Dutch occupancy changed a 
servile Oriental despotism into a fairly liberal 
and humane government of the modern type. Of 
course it does not rest upon the consent of the 
governed. It has little relation to constitutional 
liberty. When 65,000 aliens hold 35,000,000 na- 
tives under their heel, there must needs be rigor, 
suspicion, exploitation and tyranny. 

JAVANESE TRAITS 

The Javanese seem to the observer a silent 
race. They are very undemonstrative. They 
walk in single file and rarely converse with each 
other. They often live in kongpongs (com- 
pounds), small clusters of huts. A family group, 
a tribal instinct, may lead to this custom. Their 
housekeeping is simplicity itself: a straw cage, 
windowless, no chimneys, generally one room; if 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 81 

more, the rooms are occupied by several families. 
No chairs are needed, as the natives sit upon mats 
or on the bare ground. No heating is required 
in this blistering climate, except a few faggots 
to heat the tea. 

The costumes are as simple as the diet ; bare 
feet, on the head a handkerchief swathed into a 
turban or cap. The women generally are bare- 
headed. Like the Japanese women, their coil of 
jet black hair is the protection for the head. 
Few dishes are used. No books are needed, for 
few can read. The mosques are open all day. 
Friday is the day for ceremonial prayer. The 
mosques are as plain as their homes. The floors 
are covered with mattings and prayer rugs of 
straw. 

Some of the costumes are rather exiguous ; 
they become scantier, until they disappear en- 
tirely from little boys and girls, especially in the 
country. The stark-naked youngsters run on the 
roads, and look on the stranger wonderingly 
through their glowing eyes. There is no visible 
indecency among the elders. 

Every Moslem is allowed four wives. When 
I asked: "How can he support them?" The 
answer was : "Why, they support him ; one sup- 
plies him with cigarettes ; one with spending 
money, one attends to his clothes ; and one to his 
meals." 

Evidently, the new woman and suffragette have 
not reached Java. 



82 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

One of the interesting nuisances in the Orient, 
is the swarms of peddlers. In each considerable 
town there is what is called a market. At this, 
all kinds of native foods and products are for 
sale; also many imported articles. The goods 
are spread upon platforms ; the sellers sit cross- 
legged, smoking cigarettes. The building is 
roofed, and divided into sections. The dealers 
send out the peddlers, who haunt any stranger 
who happens to appear in the village. The ped- 
dler kneels before him, crosses his hands, as if in 
prayer, then opens his bag and displays his 
wares. All who have traveled in the Orient know 
the wonderful elasticity in prices. In descending 
from a grandeur of price to about one-third or 
one-quarter of the sum, the Javanese peddler is 
an artist. 

There is the same aversion to manual work 
among primitive, as among so-called civilized 
peoples. Man is naturally an indolent animal. 
Here, as in Europe and the United States, peo- 
ple are congesting themselves in cities. 

There is but one newspaper printed in the Eng- 
lish language in Java. All others are in Dutch. 

Wages are beggarly low in Java. We hap- 
pened to be at a hotel one Saturday night, which 
was payday. About twenty-four servants went 
to the porch where the manager stood; they 
crouched to the ground and did not seem to have 
even the spirit of hens fluttering to gobble the 
thrown corn. The manager counted them; then 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 83 

handed to one of them the value of six dollars in 
American money, as the aggregate wages for the 
twenty-four. In addition they have their meals, 
and occasionally a tip. What would the despots 
of American kitchens say to this? These serv- 
ants, thus wretchedly paid, are very competent. 
They do everything possible to make the- guests 
comfortable; anticipate every want so far as they 
know. The Oriental servant sleeps anywhere. 
He lies down before his master's door; often has 
no pillow ; catches what sleep he can ; arises with 
a smile in the morning, and goes to his work with 
apparent cheerfulness. He is fatalist enough to 
accept life; whatever comes to him is his lot. 

Every foreigner has a "boy." This is the uni- 
versal term for a waiter or valet in the East. 
Housekeepers employ a half-dozen of them or 
more. The boy is paid from a dollar to a dollar 
and a half a week, and finds his own food and 
clothes out of this pittance. There is an art of 
economy in the East, unknown in the West. The 
people, as a whole, have a healthful aspect; but 
few of them seem to have reached sixty years. 
The birth-rate is high; the population of Java 
has doubled in the last three generations. 

Already, there is some migration to the island 
of Sumatra. The emigrants go under contracts 
of indenture. A Dutch magistrate carefully ex- 
amines each to see if his action is voluntary. If 
the increase in the population of Java continues, 
this migratory-movement to Sumatra and Borneo, 



m GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

both thinly inhabited, must become more general. 

CHRISTMAS IN JAVA 

A Christmas in the tropics is almost uncanny. 
Our winter festival has descended from the wild, 
cold Northland; from our Norse ancestors. The 
Christian church borrowed the festival of the win- 
ter solstice, baptized it: Woodin, Thor, Frigga, 
retreated before the Star of Bethlehem. Santa 
Claus, the yule-log, the fir tree remained; but a 
new thought veiled the ancient festival. To the 
Moslem, of course, Christmas has no meaning. 
To those of the Christian faith, who live in the 
boiling tropics, its home-spirit is attenuated. 
The snow and ice, the darkening days, the ting- 
ling cold, the blustering, frost-edged winds, are 
unknown. The gorgeous plumage of the trees, 
the languid air, the open houses, white raiment 
and bare heads suggest mid-summer heats, not 
"waste for churlish winter's tyranny." 

On Christmas day we were in Djocjacarta, in 
East Java, a most primitive town ; but with a 
Dutch Resident and a considerable number of 
Dutch families. On Christmas eve, we happened 
to be riding by a cemetery, and saw many people 
going into its gates, carrying flowers. Nearly 
every grave was decorated with beautiful tropical 
flowers or shrubs. It was a Dutch cemetery, 
clean and well kept. With the Dutch, cleanliness 
is an instinct. Javanese girl-servants carried 
baskets of flowers and leaves, which were placed 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 85 

upon the graves and slabs. The assembling of 
so many flowers perfumed the air. The plain 
cemetery was glorified into a conservatory. At 
a few of the graves, Eurasians (persons of mixed 
European and Asiatic blood), in addition to the 
flowers, placed pots of incense. 

All of these slight but tender symbolisms must 
have carried the thoughts of the Dutch emigres to 
their distant home-land. The Dutchman comes 
to the Indies to live; he cuts the social roots 
which link him to Holland ; he has no intention of 
reverting to his native soil ; here, under southern 
skies, in this spiced air of the tropics, he comes to 
live and die. He seems to have no home-sickness. 
Yet, he remains Dutch to the core; he guzzles 
Holland gin ; eats Dutch cheese ; keeps his native 
tongue. Every hotel, — indeed, many Javanese 
homes, — have portraits of plump Queen Wilhel- 
mina of Holland. Many of the Dutch know 
nothing of English. 

THE DUTCH AND THE NATIVES 

Slavery once existed under the Dutch occu- 
pancy, on the part of the conquerors. It was 
succeeded by enforced labor. Now labor is free. 
No doubt, there have been tyranny, some cruelty 
and injustice; but at the present time, Java is 
well and humanely governed. 

The Dutch have been wise enough to let the re- 
ligious and social customs of the natives alone, 
except where they were inimical to good order. 



86 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

They have sapped the pohtical power of the Sul- 
tans, but have left them a shadow of Oriental 
grandeur. 

THE SULTANATE OF DJOCJACARTA 

This region, the name of which is generally 
shortened to Djocja, is most interesting. It is 
an ancient Sultanate. The Sultan formerly had 
despotic power; his word was law; when he made 
a public procession, no subject must look upon his 
divine face; he must cringe and fawn before his 
awful majesty. For a slight transgression the 
offender was arrested, brought to the palace, 
ranged up against a wall; his life was ended by 
a stab from a poisoned dagger. ' 

Now all this is changed, except in external 
show. The Sultan owned the lands of his sub- 
jects. The government has converted this title 
into an annuity of something like $300,000 per 
annum and has appropriated most of his lands. 
He still has a royal estate, more than four miles 
in circumference, called the Kraton, where he lives 
in Oriental pomp. 

The Kraton has a population of from 15,000 to 
20,000 people, all of whom are a part of the 
retinue of the Sultan's court. Here are Oriental 
waste and profusion ; a wild, barbaric hodge- 
podge of vulgarity and art. A mosque, tiger- 
cages, a stable of Arabian horses, elephants, a 
harem of fifty concubines, a yellow house, a danc- 
ing-hall where girls dance while the Sultan eats ; 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 87 

a gilt banquet-hall, which can accommodate 600 
guests : lackeys posturing and crouching : one giv- 
ing his time to the important work of holding up 
a pole tufted with feathers ; others pretending to 
act as guards, with a splash of swords. The 
whole effect was tawdry and dingy. 

With all his garish splendor, the Sultan is a 
prisoner in the Kraton: he is not allowed to leave 
it or to receive a guest, without license of the 
Dutch Resident. He has been stripped of all 
political and judicial power. He is said to have 
been the father of 100 children, 73 of whom are 
living: and has so many grandchildren and great- 
grandchildren that he does not know their names. 
Dutch guards are stationed on the grounds. 

We saw a Rugan, a prince, at the hotel. He 
was attended by a retinue of guards and six serv- 
ants, with umbrellas. All crouched when he sat 
down at the tea-table. His waiters bowed to the 
floor when they offered him articles of food. 

Can it be that there is a matrix for a future 
republic of self-respecting citizens, in countries 
where servile and degrading adulation of over- 
lords has been ground into the national conscious- 
ness, as the drift of countless ages.? "The di- 
vinity that doth hedge a king" dies hard. 

THE WATER CASTLE 

In Djocja are the ruins of the Taman Sarle, or 
Water Castle, built by a Portuguese architect, 
some two hundred years ago, for one of the most 



88 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

powerful of the Sultans, Manko Boemi. It is 
locally called "The Water Kasteel." Once it 
must have been a magnificent estate ; it is now a 
dreary derelict. It was laid out on a grand 
scale ; with many richly carved gates, a system 
of ponds, canals and subterranean passages. It 
is now deserted. The earthquake of 1867 was the 
finishing stroke. The once glassy ponds are 
choked with slime ; the canals reek with rubbish ; 
the carvings and stonework are overlaid with 
mold and lichens ; the rose-gardens and flower- 
beds abandoned to jungle. The lake, in the cen- 
ter of which the glorious castle stood, has disap- 
peared. 

Once the Water Castle was a symbol of power; 
the home of wassail and high revelry. The toil- 
ing Javanese supported it by their sweat. What 
scenes of cruelty and lust, of festival and bar- 
baric pomp, have been acted within its walls, one 
can only imagine. It stood for unbridled power; 
for lawless indulgence; its art was the joint ex- 
pression of the Latin and Hindoo forms. Under 
the soft skies of Java, in the hush of the brooding 
silences, in the sense of mystery which invests any 
memorial of departed greatness ; with its whisper- 
ing palms and flashing oleanders ; with the morn- 
ing-glory creeping up its moldy walls ; with all 
its mildew and decay ; it has a certain fascination. 
But is must give way to new forces. Even in 
Java, it probably will not encumber the silent 
earth much longer. 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 89 

BUDDHISTIC RUINS IN JAVA 

The island of Java was once under the Hindu 
and Buddhistic religions. Wliat impulse, whether 
of conviction, state-craft, violence or religious 
fervor, brought the Javanese over to the faith 
of Islam, about four centuries ago, is not clear. 
However, the conversion was thorough. Very 
few adherents of the Hindu faiths, except the 
Chinese Buddhists, are left in Java. 

Yet, some of the noblest Buddhistic ruins in 
the world are on this island. There must have 
been an exalted faith in Buddhism. Such stupen- 
dous temples could never have been erected, a 
thousand years ago, at epochs when the popula- 
tion and wealth of the island were nothing as 
compared with to-day, unless under a tremendous 
wave of religious enthusiasm. Many of those 
vast structures have been obliterated. Several 
remain in impressive grandeur; visible monuments 
of an obsolete faith, of a by-gone and spent de- 
votion to the ancient religions of India. I can 
mention but one of them; the greatest of all; one 
of the noblest expressions of religious art in the 
world ; the great Buddhistic temple of 

BOEO BOEDOER 

To describe this monumental ruin ; its glorious 
setting in the hills, near Moentilan, would require 
a volume. In size, the temple of Boro Boedoer is 
as large as the Great Pyramid of Cheops at 
Gizeh, Egypt. In art, beauty and location, it is 



90 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

infinitely superior. There are many extensive 
ruins of temples in Java ; Buddhism was a temple- 
building religion, like Catholicism in the Middle 
Ages. That of Brambanan, near by, is next to 
the Boro Boedoer in majesty, but much inferior 
to it. 

Imagine a valley of almost incomparable 
beauty, climbing up into heliotrope-hued hills and 
darkling mountains ; the shadows of the crested 
peaks and forested hillsides flickering on the sea 
of green, in which the valley-basin is garbed; all 
around, a vast silence ; scarcely a house visible, 
except the hotel and buildings near the temple ; 
everything clothed in mystery, as in the Vale of 
Delphi, or amid the desert-silences around the 
Egyptian Pyramids. Man seems alien in such a 
scene. What can he do to add anything to this 
magical beauty? Can he add a charm to moun- 
tain, tree or flower? Can he enrich the unspeak- 
able riches of this fountain of light and glory? 
Yes, he can ; and he has made his contribution. 
If he cannot gild refined gold, or paint the vio- 
let, or add a hue to summer's rainbow, he has 
added a glory to this matchless valley. Some 
1100 years ago, some architect, — probably a 
Hindu, — dreamed an exalted dream. Perhaps 
the valley was then densely inhabited. At any 
rate, whether in solitude or before the eyes of 
human multitudes, the work of building superb 
Boro Boedoer was begun. How long the reli- 
gious enthusiasn) Jagted that flamed into this ma- 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 91 

jestic structure and the many others that as- 
cended into the upper air on the hills of Java, 
we are not told. 

Such an era of building must have been a na- 
tional movement. Multitudes of men must have 
said: "Go to. Let us build a temple." And 
they were built ; built by the human hand alone. 
No machinery eased the burden. The backs and 
muscles of coolies carried or drew up the great 
stones. Steam, derricks, electric cranes, and the 
thousands of labor-saving contrivances of our 
day had not then been bom. 

So, the remarkable temple of Boro Boedoer 
came into existence, in a lovely form ; built upon a 
great mound of earth ; with no inner auditorium ; 
all was external ; a solid pyramidal structure ; 
built without mortar or cement ; stone laid on or 
around stone; without column, pillar or arch. 
Its symmetry is perfect ; not a distortion, except 
where an earthquake or lightning has shaken it. 
It was raised upon a series of terraces, with fine 
galleries, each with balustrades ; the highest ter- 
race crowned with a huge cupola. The lowest 
gallery has 408 bas-reliefs ; the inside of the para- 
pets 470 pictures, sculptured in raised forms. 
There were in all, 1504 bas-reliefs ; 441 Buddha 
images still remain intact. No matter about 
numbers or architectural details. The temple is 
a glorification of Buddha ; the pictures and im- 
ages represent his life from his birth to his Nir- 
vana, when he reached beatific bliss. In all the 



92 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

images, he sits with crossed legs, It is said that 
no twO' of his faces represent the same attitude. 
Symbolically, the lower tiers of images are sup- 
posed to represent the world of wishes, that of 
forms, that without forms, the Nirvana, or eternal 
rest. 

In the neighborhood are the ruins of 400 
temples, some Hindu, some Buddhistic, and the 
outlines of a city larger than any now on the is- 
land. 

When we remember what Java is ; a summer- 
land of perpetual sunshine; the home of active 
volcanoes ; with a soil from which the richest vege- 
tation almost exudes, with a fecundity unequaled 
on the globe; a center of shivering earthquakes, 
which commit merciless ravage ; — it seems wonder- 
ful that Boro Boedoer has remained almost intact 
" 'mid the wreck of matter and the crush of 
worlds." Yet, it has. It has outlived the wor- 
ship of Buddha on the island. The descendants 
of its builders have disowned him. The benign 
face has smiled on the blooming valley for ten cen- 
turies. The Arabian prophet, with his mon- 
otheism and fiercer faith, supplanted the gentle 
Buddha. Yet, Islam is represented by no such 
temple-monument. 

Perhaps Islam was forced upon Java, at the 
edge of the sword, as in North Africa ; perhaps 
it came by moral suasion. Islam is the faith of 
solitary, wandering peoples. It may have been 
better adapted to the genius of the Javanese,' 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 93 

Both Buddhism and Islam are sterilized. Both 
have done a great regenerative work; probably 
both have fulfilled their mission. 

As I cast my last glance on Boro Boedoer, I 
said to myself: "Is such to be the fate of any 
of the proud cathedrals of our day? Will the 
shell outlive the substance? Will any of them be 
to unknown generations monuments of a departed 
faith?" 

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 

The rice (paddy) interest in Java is immense. 
It is conducted with a high degree of scientific 
agriculture, with a wonderful system of irriga- 
tion. As soon as one crop is harvested, the seeds 
for another crop are sown, in endless succession. 
As one looks upon the rice-fields and the many 
laborers bending over in the task of planting, 
transferring, gathering and binding, one wonders 
where they lived, not a house being in sight. But 
look into a fringe of trees which skirt the swamps : 
there we find the humble homes of the toilers, em- 
bowered in the shade. 

Another great interest is tea culture; the seeds 
were brought from China and Japan, as the tea- 
plant is not indigenous to Java. 

Coff"ee culture has been carried on for more 
than 200 years. Sugar culture is very ancient; 
in its output Java is second only to Cuba. The 
recent economic awakening has come from rub- 
ber. The development of this industry goes back 



94^ GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

only to 1904j, the plant having been introduced 
from South America through the Malay states. 
Many millions of English capital are now invested 
in the rubber plantations. 

Java was once a vast forest, and would be 
now were it not for the human hand. 

I am informed that it is only in the province 
of Batavia that the government has sold land; 
these sales were made many years ago. In all 
other parts of Java the government owns the fee of 
the soil, which is cultivated on leases. This is 
right. In a country so distinctly agricultural 
and with so dense and ignorant a population, the 
land should always be held by the government as 
their trustee. 

The dark side of Javanese life — if the word 
darkness can be applied to a land brimming with 
fountains of light, with the softest of skies, rose- 
colored, fawn-tinted; with its wealth of gaudy 
trees and shrubs — is the ignorance and poverty 
of the natives. Most of them seem to be without 
ideas or thoughts. Their lives are a round of 
toilsome work; their amusements are childish. If 
there is among them any spark or potency of in- 
tellectual power, it has not been developed. 
They are stranded afar from the shore of mod- 
em thought. Superstitious, narrow in vision, 
near to primitive nature, they move on, a 
shadowy procession of child-like beings. Can 
the springs of thought ever be awakened in 
them? 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 95 

SOERABAYA 

This big city is simply a business mart ; a port 
of entry for the Australian trade ; a center of dis- 
tribution. The upper and newer parts of the 
city are finely laid out ; the well-paved avenues 
are alive with motor cars ; the lower parts are 
given up to business, and the homes of Chinese 
and Javanese. In these are squalor ; here are 
hatched the germs of cholera. Recently 40,000 
natives and Chinese have been inoculated against 
the dread scourge, from which hardly an Oriental 
seaport is immune. 

THE HUMAN ELEMENT 

The fact is, that in the great human hives of 
the Orient, humanity runs to waste. It is the 
cheapest of all products. In the early days of 
Dutch supremacy, there were repression, cruelty, 
slavery and shameless disregard of the rights of 
the natives. Perhaps the three hundred years 
of Dutch rule are no worse record than that of 
the same number of years of any other country 
or nation. All history is a sickening page of 
blood, cruelty, exploitation of the poor by the 
governing classes, tyranny and abuse of power. 
The methods by which the Dutch acquired the 
lands of the natives were very similar to those 
by which the North American Indians were robbed 
of theirs by the early settlers. Now, in spite 
of the hauteur of the Dutch, and their strict 
over-lordship of the natives, I see no reason to 



96 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

believe that they are intentionally inhumane. 
The problem is simply the old one of a dominant 
and servient race coming in contact, with all the 
power on one side. The natives sink into a quasi- 
servile caste. Their lives flow on from father to 
son in the same dull monotony. Cringing and 
obedience become habitual ; these are in the fiber 
of the passive Oriental character. 

In the three centuries of Dutch control, not a 
Javanese native has risen to a high public office, 
to any considerable wealth, or to any business re- 
quiring administrative ability. Is this because 
he is incapable by nature of advancement, or be- 
cause he has had no chance? On the other hand, 
the wealthiest man in Java is a Chinese, who be- 
gan life as a laborer. My observations lead me 
to believe that the Chinese strain in the Javanese 
blood is larger than has been estimated ; that the 
Chinaman is an extremely important factor in 
the industrial life of the island ; that his steady 
hand and tireless energy are forces which will 
become more and more recognized in its future 
history. The Chinaman is a great "mixer" ; he 
absorbs and is absorbed as softly as a rain-drop 
in almost any community. He earns his rights 
by patience and industry. 

Our departure from Soerabaya was almost 
triumphal. We were glad to leave its steaming 
streets ; rode to the steamer through a file of more 
than a thousand, perhaps two thousand, of Jav- 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 97 

anese coolies, who were coming' in an opposite 
direction, for what purpose I do not know. Si- 
lent, somber, cheerless ; — hardly one talking to 
another, they made a ghostly procession of human 
automata ; shadowy and grim. 

The harbor was full of dirty sampans. On 
one, near our steamer, we saw the coolies eat 
their afternoon meal. There were a kettle of 
boiled rice and some dried fish. The coolies gath- 
ered around it ; stuck their fingers into the kettle ; 
took out a handful of the plain food and ate it 
without chop-stick, knife or fork. There was no 
need of any such civilized implements. 

The bathrooms in the Orient are a peculiar 
arrangement: — a tiled floor, with drainage; a 
large basin of water, built upon masonry ; a dip- 
per from which the bather splashes himself. In 
some bathrooms there is a shower-bath. As 
nearly all the Dutch and tourists dress in white, 
clothing requires laundering nearly as often as 
the body does bathing. When a party of tour- 
ists arrive at a hotel, behold, at once, a procession 
of kimono-robed men and women to the bathroom. 

FOUNTAIN OP COLOR 

Now for the arch of triumph under which we 
left Soerabaya. It was not on the footstool of 
the earth, nor on the watery sea. It was in the 
realm of cloud-land; one of the most magnificent 
sunsets ; trailing clouds of glory, luminous and 



98 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

splendid. In my many wanderings over this 
earth, I have seen the sunset-witchery of vapor 
and radiant light in many forms of almost be- 
wildering beauty; in the vast silences and crystal 
air of Siberia; in the brooding hush of Egyptian 
deserts ; in the wonderland of the Yellowstone 
Park and Yosemite Valley; in the gaunt North- 
land ; in olive-crowned Greece and Palestine ; and 
very many resting on the cheek of the old ocean ; 
but nowhere have I seen more of a play of delicate 
color than in Java. Here are all the conditions : 
ribbed mountains and encircling sea; billowy 
waves of light by day and impenetrable darkness 
by night ; refraction, evaporation going on in all 
the secrecies of the sky. 

And so the sun, dipping into his evening bed, 
on this run from Soerabaya to Batavia, along the 
Javanese coast, met the vaporous clouds and 
kissed them into a multitude of forms and dyed 
them in hues, inter-penetrating, floating from one 
to another ; now a cumulus of azure-white ; now 
drifting into rose-red ; now chasing into a foun- 
tain of yellow, with an under-bank of maroon or 
opal. What inexhaustible fountains of beauty 
are in the secret treasures of nature; a choral 
symphony of sound, color and power. Under the 
soft equatorial skies ; in the delicious perfume of 
the sea-air ; with the glitter of sunshine ; the 
shores of Java, Sumatra and Banka, in turn, rais- 
ing their forested hills to catch the eye of the 
wandering passenger, there is a voiceless choral, 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 99 

in which the noises and discords, the rivalries and 
conflicts, the greed and scorn of man, melt in an 
ecstasy of harmony. 

From Soerabaya the steamer ran to Samarung, 
a considerable seaport. Now Java, the summer- 
land, began to recede from our sight. Its floral 
magnificence, majestic ruins, glorious forests, 
superb trees and flaming shrubs, its strange hu- 
man tribes, cottages, rice-fields, plantations of 
rubber, sugar, tobacco, tea, tapioca, cinchona, 
and almost endless diversity of tropical products, 
were passing into memory, now their only pos- 
sible granary. All began to seem illusory. The 
wonder that had edged the face of this magical 
land, no longer visualized to the outer senses, 
can be known now only to "that inner eye, which 
is the bliss of solitude." 

The cloud-capped mountains will rise in solemn 
majesty; the ocean will lap the shores; the mil- 
lions of the yellow breeds will move on in an end- 
less stream of humanity, a segment of the in- 
scrutable East. All the radiant color and glow- 
ing splendor of the tropics will still be there; but 
our eyes will rest on them no more. Like a vision 
in the morning silences ; or a dream in the still 
hours of the night ; like a shadowy phantom of 
beauty that is created by an exalted imagination, 
it has vanished. 

Our only stop the next day was at the town 
of Minta on the island of Banka. A gilded boat. 



100 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

rowed by six stalwart Javanese, — suggesting 
Cleopatra's barge or an ancient trireme, — came 
out to transfer an official from our steamer to the 
shore. 

The spunky Dutchman, when clothed with a 
little brief authority, rises to the occasion with 
a certain ceremoniousness unknown to us Ameri- 
cans. He is proud of his country's East Indian 
empire. Pie has a lurking dread of the rising 
power of Japan ; and knows that, without the 
aid of England or Germany, he could not resist 
successfully a Japanese invasion; but feels that 
his main security is in the great distance from 
Japan. 

TROPICAL DISCOMFORTS 

Are there no discomforts in Java? Yes, many. 
There is the terrific heat, which eats into the vi- 
tality of a Northerner. At this midwinter season 
there is insolent daylight from, say, five in 
the morning until seven in the evening; refreshed 
often, in this the wet season, by a cooling shower 
in the afternoon. When the shower ends, it is 
astonishing to see how soon the air is choked 
with dust. The rain dries almost as it touches 
the ground, unless there be thick shade. So 
warm are the nights that no bedclothes are re- 
quired. The beds are phenomenally large, gen- 
erally six by eight, screened by a muslin netting. 
On this huge bed one sleeps without cover. 

Insect and reptilian life abounds. The click 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 101 

of the slimy lizard is heard as it climbs the walls 
of verandas and bedrooms. It is useful as an 
insect-catcher and is harmless. Flies, ants, midg- 
ets, all sorts of insect torments, are rife. 

All houses must be adjusted to air-drainage. 
They are rarely more than one story high; gen- 
erally with trim gardens garlanded with palms 
and potted shrubs. Almost everything is in the 
open ; the large porch or veranda is the gather^ 
ing place. To lock up a house or a room in a 
hotel is almost an impossibility. The stranger 
is somewhat disturbed at first when he sleeps in 
an open-ground- floor room, with a cohort of na- 
tives sprawled on the hall or veranda floor about 
him. He misses his usual safeguards ; but soon 
falls into the free and easy ways of the coun- 
try. 

RETROSPECT 

So, when one is on a comfortable steamer, 
breathing the ozone of the ocean, away from the 
blister of the summerland, one can hardly avoid 
a feeling of relief. One can hardly wish oneself 
back and does not envy the Dutchmen their palm- 
bowered homes. Rather one half sighs for what 
Shakespeare calls "thrilling regions of thick- 
ribbed ice;" for a bracing nor'-wester, a gust of 
snow-filtered air; a touch of tingling cold; a look 
upon a fall of downy snow. 

On the third morning the steamer reached the 
port of Batavia, and here we spent our last day 



102 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

on Java. It was mainly devoted to a visit to 
the Museum, which contains a valuable and inter- 
esting collection of antiques and curios, which 
have been gathered in the Dutch East Indies. 
These included ancient armor and weapons, of 
course, because man always has been and is now, 
a fighting animal, with an insatiate propensity 
to kill his fellowmen; — cooking utensils, speci- 
mens of primitive hand-weaving, mat and basket 
work, pottery, bronze and iron work, musical in- 
struments, clothing, wood-carving, glassware, 
replicas of primitive houses and furniture; and, 
worst of all, instruments of torture, a collection 
almost as horrible as that seen in the Tower of 
London or in Nuremberg Castle. How much of 
the ingenuity of mankind has been devoted to hell- 
ishness. 

Perhaps the most suggestive part of the collec- 
tion was that of implements which gave a 
biological record of the moving of the ancient 
tribesmen of Java, from the stone age into the 
age of bronze and iron. While dates of these 
important movements are lost in the mists of 
antiquity, such articles are proof of the steady 
evolutionary progress of our race into a higher 
intellectualism and gathered power of utilizing 
natural forces. 

Some of the articles, such as ivory carving 
and delicate woodwork, indicated that the 
Malayans of the archipelago formerly possessed 
a mechanical skill which is now lost. Their hid- 



JAVA, THE ENCHANTED ISLE 103 

eous idols, antedating the adoption of Brahman- 
ism or Buddhism, represented the earhest stages 
of the religious consciousness, an elementary 
striving to solve some of the mysteries of life. 
Many of them were based upon demonology, 
even now a powerful force in all lands ; rude 
concepts of the destructive forces of nature; in- 
fantile efforts to avert the revengeful wrath of 
offended deities. Early religions were largely 
the result of fear. The primitive mind saw evil, 
destruction and death at work everywhere. How 
to propitiate malevolence was the basis of much 
of the idolatrous worship. Religion was then 
based upon selfishness. As the Malayans out- 
grew human sacrifices, the idols became more be- 
nignant in aspect. The faces of Buddha always 
indicate loving pity for mankind. Even now, 
however, the old idolatrous spirit lingers among 
the natives. When a volcanic eruption over- 
whelms the land, the effigy of a man is thrown 
into the crater. A few hundred years ago, a 
man would have been sacrificed. At least, some 
progress has been made out of the darkness of 
primitive superstitions. 

December 30. 
This day closed our pilgrimage to Java. The 
memories of its glorious scenery; its palms sil- 
houetted against the crimson sky ; the exuberant 
forestry springing from the fat soil; all the 
indescribable wealth of natural beauty ; and 
the multitudes of the human element so pro- 



104 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

foundly interesting, are the pleasing residuum. 

American travel to Java is increasing rapidly. 

It is said that 3,000 tourists visit it every year. 

American business interests in Java are slight. 

Singapore, January 1. 
Back again in Singapore, on New Year's Day. 
This holiday is one day later than at home. All 
business is suspended. Flags are flying from the 
shipping in the harbor. The shores are lined 
with thousands of coolies, watching boat-races. 
An occasional rest enters even their toilsome lives. 



X 

THE MALAYAN PENINSULA 

A shining spot upon a shaggy map: 
Where mind and body^ in fair junction free. 
Luted their joyful concord. 

Meredith. 

The Malayan Peninsula is not large in area. 
It has less than 26,000 square miles. It is a 
little more than half the size of England, or 
Java, or New York State. For many years it 
had an unenviable reputation. It was the nurs- 
ery of pirates. The peninsula has an excellent 
geographical relation to commerce. It is 
tongued on the east by the China Sea ; on the 
west by the Straits of Malacca: it is near to the 
rich islands of Sumatra, Java and Borneo. 
Once, back in far-folded ages, which have never 
told their secrets, those islands, and even Aus- 
tralasia, were an integral part of the Asian con- 
tinent. Some awful cataclysm came: or there 
were infinite ages of slow disintegration: at last, 
these islands were ripped from the continent. 
The Malayan Peninsula is stretched out, like a 
lizard's tongue, to' catch them. In vain: the is- 
lands have gone on their vagrant way: per- 
haps not until "the last syllable of recorded 
105 



106 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

time" ; but until these remote days when a re- 
distribution of the earth's crust may confuse the 
schemes of men, if men are then on this planet. 

When these islands parted company with the 
mainland of Asia, they left enough behind them. 
The Malayan Peninsula was not left dowerless. 
It is one of the most fertile and productive re- 
gions of the world. Four hundred years ago 
Europeans came here: the Portuguese, who were 
then a race of hardy mariners ; what little title 
to the Peninsula the Portuguese had acquired 
was grabbed by the spunky Dutch, who, for some 
years, had a settlement at Malacca. This town 
gave its name to the peninsula : in my school- 
days, its name was the Peninsula of Malacca. In 
the final shakeup between England and Holland, 
after the downfall of Napoleon, whatever title 
the Dutch had to any part of the peninsula was 
vested in England. 

Singapore at the south, Penang at the north, 
became important trade centers. Malacca 
faded. England gradually acquired title to more 
of the peninsula. The result is a bewildering 
division of authority. A part of the peninsula is 
the Straits Settlements, all littoral territory or 
islands. The rest except a strip which belongs 
to Siam, is divided into provinces nominally 
under control of the native Sultans. In each 
province is an English Resident, who either ad- 
ministers or "advises" the local Sultan how to 
administer his Sultanate. 



THE MALAYAN PENINSULA 107 

All of the peninsula, except the Straits Settle- 
ments, is called the Malay Federated States. In 
the States the title to most of the land is vested 
in the local sultan. The most southerly sul- 
tanate is Jahore, just north of Singapore. 

The Mohammedan religion came into the pen- 
insula from Sumatra and Java ; there are tradi- 
tions of an invasion from one or both of those 
islands about the year 14*00. The original in- 
habitants were Negritos. A few of these are left 
in the mountain fastnesses ; but virtually the 
Malay is now the only native. In all the prov- 
inces of the Malay Federated States the English 
Resident does not interfere in matters of re- 
ligion. In the cities and towns there are Prot- 
estant and Catholic churches. Few Moslems, 
however, change their faith. Once a Moslem, 
always a Moslem is the rule. The simplicity of 
Mohammedanism is its strength. It accepts an 
absolute sultan ; but otherwise a Moslem com- 
munity is a pure democracy, without castes or 
aristocracy. 

The land is allotted to the natives by the sultan, 
generally in farms of about five acres. It is 
usually put down to rice, in the culture of which 
the Malay shows considerable skill, especially in 
irrigation. His rice crop, supplemented by a 
cocoanut grove and a patch of bananas, supplies 
all his wants. He is indolent and unambitious, 
unmoved by the influx of aliens. 

Why should he, the lord of the soil, a future 



108 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

inheritor of Paradise, work? He is a perfectly 
satisfied being. He is vexed by no political or 
religious problems ; he leaves all those to the 
Sultan, the Koran and the priests. Let the Eng- 
lishman develop the country by his brains and 
money; and the Chinese by his muscle. He was 
here before these adventurers came ; he, doubtless, 
expects that his descendants will be here when 
they are gone. He smokes his tobacco, or chews 
the sugar-cane, while his wife works in the rice- 
field. His taxes are light. Really the Malay is 
quite a philosopher in his way. No gad-fly of 
progress stings him. All the strenuous strivings 
of the Occident ; all the mechanical inventions 
which are fast transforming the political and 
economic order ; all the speculations of scientists, 
who "follow knowledge like a sinking star," have 
no meaning to him. 

Kindly nature cast the indolent Malay in a 
land flowing with milk and honey. It is a 
splendid inheritance. 

Take tin-mining alone. Who realizes that on 
this little peninsula, three-fourths of which have 
not yet been touched, 45 per cent, of the world's 
output of tin is mined .? All the mines are on 
leased land ; the government receives a royalty 
and lays an export tax. The annual output has 
a value of $40,000,000. The industry is old on 
the peninsula; much of it is carried on by the 
Chinese, with crude methods ; with the flesh-ma- 
chine, instead of hydraulic engineering. The 



THE MALAYAN PENINSULA 109 

large companies conduct their business with high 
technical skill. Nothing on the peninsula is so 
profitable as tin mining. While the deposits 
hold out, a stream of wealth will flow in to the 
miners. The tin companies, as well as the rub- 
ber business, are financed in London. The Malay 
Federated States have an overflowing revenue ; a 
large surplus. 

THE CLIMATE AND CITIES 

The tourist, who makes only a swallow-flight to 
the Malayan Peninsula, perching for a few hours 
in Singapore and Penang, knows little of its 
amazing beauty and profound interest. In many 
respects, especially in the northern part, it re- 
sembles Java ; or rather, the Java of bygone 
generations, when the hand of civilized man was 
beginning to tame its wildness. It is a land 
where nothing can live to old age. Nature, the 
eternal mother, always rejuvenating herself in 
new growths, is the only thing which can be called 
old. The dampness of the climate, the vo- 
racious vegetation, allow nothing that man builds 
to last long. These laugh at his clumsy ambi- 
tions. 

At Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh and Taiping, — 
the former the capital, and the other two cities, 
growing and important business centers, on the 
railroad line from Singapore to Penang, these 
facts were noticeable. Much has been done to 
promote sanitation, and to adorn them with fine 



110 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

buildings. Parks and gardens, refreshed by the 
showers, their trees and shrubs drawing their life 
from the soil rich in vitalizing chemical qualities, 
soon reach a wondrous growth. Vegetation 
springs, bounds, laughs into jocund life. Alas, 
however, for buildings. Dampness and mildew 
soon give them a clammy aspect. They sweat. 
Those which are only twenty years old often 
look as venerable as the ruins of the Old World. 
The prevailing stone, a laterite, of limestone na- 
ture, easily disintegrates. The wind, the juices 
of the skies, the creeping, vegetable growths, soon 
trail over them, and eat into the fiber of the stone 
like acids. 

The Malay never built after this fashion. The 
palm and bamboo were and are his building ma- 
terial. He raises his cage from the ground in 
order to avoid the exuding dampness, reptiles, 
insects and the thousand pests that are spawned 
from the spongy soil. He builds so that he may 
always have air-drainage. No windows repel 
the fanning winds ; no furniture invites vermin. 
If one cage falls, a few days' work will give him 
another. All he wants of a house is as a bed- 
chamber. As for the rest of his domestic needs, 
hasn't Allah given him his due share of the en- 
chanted earth? 

All of the towns must be re-builded over and 
over again. It is only in the cold, hard air of 
the Occident that there can be even a temporary 



THE MALAYAN PENINSULA 111 

endurance to man's creations. In the tropics, 
early decay is the seal set in all the boiling heats 
where man wears "the shadowed livery of the 
burnished sun." The tropics are not the theater 
for age. Life is too rich, too honeyed, to last 
long. 

RUBBER PLAKTATIONS 

What a wonderful railroad ride is that from 
Kuala Lumpur to Penang. It is one succession 
of rubber plantations, of tin mines, of strange 
peoples, of new bora towns. The railroad line 
skirted the bearded mountains which bisect the 
Peninsula. 

Rubber, rubber, rubber is the one theme of con- 
versation. Its culture is conducted on an im- 
mense scale. Almost every Englishman a tourist 
meets is connected with the business. For miles 
and miles the passenger looks up or down the 
shadowy aisles of the groves. Trees are planted 
on the lowlands, or on the sides of hills. It was 
now the tapping season and thousands of trees 
had cups attached into which the precious juice 
drips. Most of the tapping is done by Chinese, 
who are paid as high as fifty or seventy-five cents 
a day, besides being supplied with lodgings. 

This sudden and vast development of the rub- 
ber interest has brought into the Peninsula 
hordes of immigrants. The Chinese and Hindus, 
whose wages in the home-land rarely are ten cents 
a day, are allured by the offer of several times 



112 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

that sum. They ignore the climatic peril: the 
deadly malaria. Planters complain of the con- 
st g.nt enticement of their help by their competi- 
tors, who tempt with higher wages. Thus the 
eternal labor question bulges up here. 

THE JUNGLE 

One who has not seen a tropical jungle, un- 
touched in its primitive wildness, can hardly 
realize its mysterious interest. Nothing like its 
vegetal riot is known in the temperate zones. 
Imagine a sweep of growths, covered with fan- 
shaped leaves, the stalk perhaps three or four 
feet high ; then a fringe of higher plant-life, clut- 
tered and clustered in the wildest profusion, 
growing taller and tougher until the forest is 
reached. All is a mass of green, except that 
here and there a flowering shrub may give a local 
color, generally yellow, to the dense background. 
No sunbeam can pierce its gloom. Under the 
canopy of leaves and creepers all is crepuscular. 
The jungle is the twilight land. No globule of 
earth is left naked. Out of it springs some form 
of vegetal life. 

"Every clod has a thrill of mighty 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers; 
And, groping blindly above it for light, 

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers." 

Life in the jungle is at high-tide — hot, 
steamy, ferocious. Every plant or tree is suck- 



THE MALAYAN PENINSULA 113 

ing the life- juices of another. It is war to the 
death. The sinuous vine is strangling the tall 
tree. One tree fights another with its roots. 
Here is merciless competition run wild. Every 
root, each tendril, all foliage must draw their 
life from something; and where life is so con- 
gested, each member of the jungle colony is vo- 
racious for its speck of earth, its glint of super- 
ficial sunshine, each drop of rain or dew, each 
inch of space. A dying tree is at once attacked 
by an army of parasitic foes. When dead, its 
trunk is soon swathed in the spreading leaves 
of some creeper, which has helped in its death. 

The jungle teems with insects and reptilian 
Hfe. Here hideous serpents and slimy lizards 
find coverts. Over its upper planes of trees, 
vines, and floating leaves, butterflies, midgets, 
beetles, and swarms of minute creatures fly and 
buzz. 

Woe to the man who attacks the jungle for 
reclamation! The very sod may be his deadliest 
enemy. The poisonous decay of ages has been 
absorbed into its veins, hidden from the sunlight, 
soaking, festering, always renewed by fresh de- 
cay. It has become a poison-chest. Touch it 
with ax or spade, and at once spawning pesti- 
lential bacteria are liberated. The air is impreg- 
nated with these impalpable, death-dealing ene- 
mies. Every energy of jungle life combines 
against the reclaimer. 

To subdue a jungle is a magnificent victory 



114. GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

over darkling forces of immensely destructive 
power. 

Yet to the tourist, wheeled along in the com- 
fortable car, the jungle has a ghastly beauty. It 
is a type of the immense fecundity of nature, a 
reservoir of multitudinous life, a vortex of un- 
ceasing action. It is a symbolism of the con- 
structive and destructive powers of physical laws. 
In this rank charnel-house can the inner harmony 
of things be detected, — "that central peace sub- 
sisting at the heart of endless agitation." 

It is hard to interpret the moral meaning of 
such a confused microcosm as the jungle. It 
must be a part of what some philosophers now 
call "transvaluation," one of the pet catch-words 
of our time. 

Of the dark trilogy of sin, suffering, and 
death, — humanity's universal Passion Play, which 
is always being acted on the human stage, — the 
first is absent from the life of inferior creatures. 
It is only man who can sin. There is no moral 
turpitude in the carnage among animals. Each 
creature follows the law of his being. The claw, 
the tooth, the poisoned fang, the deadly bite, the 
constrictor's coil, are nature's attributes, a 
brutal response to a normal instinct. It is be- 
cause man has the power of sinning that the in- 
dividual and social consciences have been devel- 
oped. There is much truth in Matthew Arnold's 
noble lines, — 



THE MALAYAN PENINSULA 115 

"Know man is all that nature is, and more; 
And in that more lies all his hope of good." 

Another interesting' element in the railroad 
journey is the straggling hills of white, chalky 
limestone. Under the acidulous atmosphere they 
crumble slowly into atoms. Some of them seem 
to reel like drunken monsters. Cleft from their 
neighboring hills, upon which their chins once 
rested, they await, as in a coma of stupefaction, 
the final dissolution. The forests ravage their 
flanks, and extract the nitrogen from their veins. 
In this way soil is made. Once a mountain ; then 
a plateau; then, washed by rains and fertilized 
by bird and wind, they become the lair of the 
jungle. The eternal transformation never 
ceases. 

"The hills are shadows and they flow 

From fold to fold, and nothing stands. 
They melt like mists, those solid lands ; 

Like clouds, they shape themselves and go." 

ANTiaUITIES 

The Malayan Peninsula is not rich in antiqui- 
ties of fossils. The climate is too absorbent. It 
was in Java that Professor Haeckel found the 
half-human, half-ape fossil — the pithecanthropus 
— ^which he believes to be the connecting link be- 
tween human-kind and its Simian ancestry. 

The primeval forests and mountains are still 



116 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

the range of elephant, tiger and rhinoceros. 
Crocodiles live in the rivers and fens. 

Beautiful shade trees guard the streets of the 
towns. The pendant pearls of the laburnum 
swing in the air; the angsena tree drops its 
golden snow on the green of the meadows. 

SINGAPORE ONCE MORE 

The flat stretches of Singapore seemed rather 
dreary after the tumultuous richness of the 
scenery of Java. But here we were compelled to 
stay for nearly a week. There was nothing to 
do but toi accept the jail-limits; to pay exorbi- 
tant prices for wretched hotel accommodations ; 
to mince over the unpalatable food furnished in 
a pretentious hotel ; — and to entertain ourselves 
out of our own resources. This, indeed, is, after 
all, the root of all pleasure. It must come from 
within, not from without. 

The hotels are usually owned by a corporation ; 
leased by it to a manager, who sul>lets the eating 
arrangements to a Chinese at a fixed price for 
each meal. 

So it is in nearly all the Oriental hotels ; showy, 
flaring structures ; quite a sweep of veranda ; 
some attempt at floral decorations ; sometimes an 
orchestra, which plays a good many American 
rag-time songs ; but, like Mother Hubbard's cup- 
board, the kitchen is bare. Guests are always 
grumbling about the poor food. 

A week in Singapore added little to our pre- 



THE MALAYAN PENINSULA 117 

vious knowledge of this prosaic place. The 
weather was steamy hot. The humidity was so 
great that a fungus mold appeared upon leather 
and some kinds of cloth, if left unshaken and not 
aired for a few days. Another pest, all over the 
South Orient, is the ant, a most voracious crea- 
ture; destructive to almost everything. Not one 
may be in sight; but let a crumb of food or a 
dead beetle drop to the floor, and a vast army 
will appear from secret apertures in the floor or 
wall; ravenous, insatiable creatures. In the 
Dutch Indies, trunks, boxes and everything de- 
structible are set upon bricks or some rough sub- 
stance over which the ant cannot crawl. 

How can Singapore be expected to be as 
healthy as it really is? As an English resident 
expressed himself to me: It is built on covered 
slime. It is a reclaimed and crusted marsh; 
some of its squares and parks are built on tide- 
water level. It has no sewer system; no method 
has yet been devised to get rid of its sewage ex- 
cept by scavenger carts. The rain is the great 
cleansing agency, flushing the filthy streets, soak- 
ing the impurities from the soil, probably 
often penetrating to the subterranean slime. 
In the dry season the sun is the absorbent 
agency. 

Singapore was once a city of more commercial 
importance than it is now. This is hard to real- 
ize, when one may see a thousand craft in its 
harbor. It has not shrunk in population; the 
great expansion of the rubber interest has led 



118 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

to a recovery of some of its former importance. 
Once it had a great trade with Manila and the 
Dutch East Indies ; it was a distributing reser- 
voir of their products ; a clearing-house of their 
banking interests. Now all is done by direct 
communication with Europe. Singapore is no 
longer the intermediary. However, it is not a 
decadent city; it still represents a very active 
commercial life. It is a halfway station for 
Asiatic tours ; a touch-and-go rest-house. This 
intermittent travel fills its hotels, as it flits 
through. 

Back of Singapore lie the renowned Botanical 
Gardens, the reservoir, fine club-houses and many 
beautiful homes. The roads are excellent for 
motoring. Here are the homes of the rich Chi- 
nese, some of whom maintain splendid establish- 
ments. 

Singapore being essentially a Chinese city, with 
a super-added Hindu, Malayan, Japanese, Java- 
nese life and of a bewildering complex of Asiatic 
races, its street-life is really the most interesting 
thing it presents to the tourist. Ancient racial 
customs are observed with tenacity. The races 
meet, but do not melt into each other. 

One night we heard a hideous noise of discord- 
ant instruments coming from a house across the 
street. It turned out to be a part of the funeral, 
— or rather of one of the successive funerals, — of 
a rich Chinese widow, who had died two months 



THE MALAYAN PENINSULA 119 

before. How many funerals have been or are 
to be given to her embalmed body I do not know. 
We were told that it would not probably be bur- 
ied for a month. Her house was near the busi- 
ness center of Singapore on a narrow street. In 
front of it, on the sidewalk, were all sorts of ef- 
figies of the things of which the deceased was 
most fond: a miniature coach to which were at- 
tached two wooden horses, painted white, as white 
horses were her favorites; a jinrikisha chair, an 
imitation of hers ; a small temple, a model of that 
in which she worshiped, and so on. Inside the 
house were silks, robes, plaques, mats, tapes- 
tries; everything that she had enjoyed in life. 
The embalmed body was in a splendid casket of 
lacquer, studded with silver; a rich pall of em- 
broidered silk was thrown over it. Tapers and 
candles were burnt by priests and relatives. 
Friends offered sacrifices, perhaps of her favorite 
dishes. Incense was burned around the casket. 
Every now and then would come the torturing 
screech of the so-called musical instruments ; some 
of the musicians being stationed in an upper gal- 
lery, some on the streets. A stream of curious 
passers-by and tourists witnessed the weird cere- 
mony. No one was refused admission. The 
farce was kept up until midnight, when there was 
a final flare of tapers and fanfare of noise. All 
the outside articles were removed; it is said that 
they were burned on a public common. They were 
made for her spirit alone; no others should have 



120 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

any title to them. The next morning, the corpse 
lay in its magnificent receptacle; the tapestries 
hung on the walls ; the candles and tapers were 
burning; a few women and children were in at- 
tendance. 

Such was one exhibition of Chinese ancestor- 
worship ; a principle upon which much of the na- 
tional life is founded. The Emperor has hereto- 
fore represented its collective spirit. Exagger- 
ated, distorted, it nevertheless is the basis of 
much that is good in the Chinese character ; but 
it has been pushed into a cult, which has para- 
lyzed a nation otherwise gifted with a great fund 
of common sense. The ghostly past has too long 
had China in its clutch ; the nation has ignored 
the present ; saturated itself into a flatulent self- 
complacency; its Emperors became drunken with 
egotism ; its common people sunken in ignorance 
and superstition. The late revolution was the 
outgrowth of that monstrous conservatism which 
arrested the development of natural resources, 
cramped individualism, strangled enterprise and 
made China the booty of even the smallest mili- 
tary power which saw fit to encroach upon it. 

In contrast with the showy funereal flum- 
mery which I have mentioned, I am told that on 
the plantations when a poor, tuberculous or ma- 
laria-stricken Chinese coolie falls by the way, his 
countrymen often disclaim any acquaintance with 
him; leave his corpse lying where he fell; are 
callously unsympathetic. Strangers must give to 



THE MALAYAN PENINSULA 121 

the worn-out human husk that last service which 
man must render to his kind. 

One of the strange features of life in the Ori- 
ental seaports is the sampan, or boat-life. This 
reaches its limit in Hong Kong and Canton. 
How many millions of Chinese make their homes 
on these dirty boats, no one knows ; but the fig- 
ures must be very large. Singapore is no ex- 
ception. The estuaries and rivers are crowded 
with these dismal craft, filled with their floating 
inhabitants. It is said that children born on 
these may not tread on land for years ; indeed, 
that some of the tenants, especially women, never 
do so. In the intense struggle for existence in 
the Orient, the poor are thus driven even to the 
water for a home. There is no place for them 
on land. Homeless, wandering, vagrant, prop- 
ertyless, the canal or river is the only element 
which will give them footing; a cabin or a roof- 
less deck their only refuge. Yet this may be as 
good as the slime and indescribable filth of a con- 
gested street in a typical Oriental city. 

THROUGH THE PENINSULA 

From Singapore we took a steamer for Port 
Swettenham, on the west coast of the Malayan 
Peninsula. It was pleasant to get ourselves away 
from the ruck of Singapore life: to watch the 
wooded shores: to trail through the narrow jaws 
of the strait that barely opens the harbor. The 



122 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

sea is the great disinfectant. The fare on Ori- 
ental steamers is much better than in the hotels. 

The front of the town of Port Swettenham is 
built on tidal flats ; the pier is set on large iron 
cylinders, sunk in the mud to a depth of more 
than 130 feet. The embankment and pier cost a 
frightful toll of human life. The bones of more 
than 1000 coolies, whom fever and tuberculosis 
claimed as victims, tell at what a price this region 
is developed. When we read of an earthquake, 
or volcano, or cyclone, or a bloodthirsty massacre 
destroying 1000 lives, we shudder; yet, man's 
march to industrial arts is hardly less merciless. 
The Suez and Panama canals, the havoc of fever- 
and-ague and typhoid in the gaining of our West, 
and an endless catalogue of sacrifice of lives of 
slaves and captives in the building of the great 
monuments of antiquity ; all these tell one tale : 
that man lives for his fellow-men, and not for 
himself alone. It is only within a few years that 
humanism has entered into the industrial rela- 
tions of men. The lash, the swish of the slave- 
whip, the degradation of womanhood and child- 
hood, in the service of Mammon, are not so far 
back as one might wish. 

Even to-day, in spite of hospitals, medical su- 
pervision, inoculation, labor inspection, and the 
application of scientific and humane principles in 
the treatment of coolie labor, the ravages of ma- 
laria in this region are hideous. An English 
rubber grower told me that out of a gang of 



THE MALAYAN PENINSULA 123 

coolies who were brought here to work last May, 
about 350 in all, 154 were dead before Christmas. 
The death-rate among the Hindus is larger still. 
The Chinese are the tougher race. Even the 
English managers are not immune. In one rub- 
ber district, all but two of the managers were in 
hospitals, at one time last year. The malarious 
climate soon draws the bloom of health from Eng- 
lish cheeks. Pallad, hollow faces tell the dismal 
story. White men cannot do muscular labor in 
this climate. 

In Penang, out of a population of 150,000, 
only about 500 are Europeans. It is essentially 
a Chinese settlement, an island city. A steam 
launch brings the passengers from the terminal 
town of Prai on the mainland. 

Penang is a commercial center. The climate 
is more endurable than that of Singapore. A 
tropical city, it is invested with the color which 
hovers over Southeastern Asia. Brilliant days 
chase each other in languid procession. At about 
six in the afternoon velvet-robed night begins to 
descend, wrapping the earth in an inky shroud; 
as we saw it in Java and on the Peninsula, when 
the cocoanut-groves, silhouetted against the rosy 
sky, faded into dark ghosts and the night- jahr 
and owls began their nocturnal concerts. 

The Malayan Peninsula is now behind us. Its 
beauties and wild interests are an impression of 



124 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

the fast-fading past. We are out of sight of 
the purpling shadows of the aisles of the rubber 
plantations ; of the thousands of cocoanut-groves 
lifting their f ronded heads into the glittering air ; 
of the great mountain ranges, forested to their 
crests, their chins meeting each other; trembling 
with their soft, violet color; of swarming Malay 
villages ; of a jangle of dusky races; of long 
streets in the cities jammed full of rabbit warrens ; 
of coolie homes ; of gorgeous shrubs, tasselled 
trees, powdery blossoms, unfamiliar fruits. 

We are now on a steamer of the British India 
Line en route from Penang to Rangoon. For 
two days we have sailed over the rippling seas of 
the Malayan Archipelago, Elusive islands have 
met us and vanished. Flying fish dart into the 
air and poise their shining mail in the trembling 
winds. 

At night there is the glory of the stars, also. 
Brilliant constellations, unseen in the northern 
zones, shine in the sky dome above us ; such as 
the Southern Cross, Alpha and Beta Centauri. 
Their discs glitter with a startling sheen. Bil- 
lions of miles away in the sidereal abysses, they 
seem so near that one could almost clutch them 
with the hand. Cold, voiceless messengers from 
unknown systems of worlds, they are indices of 
the immeasurable cosmic spaces, of the far-folded 
realms of illimitable vastness, into which eye has 
not peered and from which no sound echoes to 
the listening ear of man. 



XI 

BURMA 

On the road tO' Mandalay, 
Where the flyin' fishes play, 

An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'erost 
the bay. 

Kipling. 

rROM PENANG TO RANGOON 

The steamer's run from Penang to Rangoon 
took three days. No ocean travel could be more 
luxurious in conditions of weather. The Gulf of 
Martaban stretched itself out like a silvery sheet. 
The waves sparkled with lustrous color. The 
winds, spiced from the perfume box of the ocean, 
blew around us in friendly comradeship. We 
worked out of "the doldrums," as the sailors call 
the area lying nine degrees north and south of 
the equator, out of the breeding-belt of rain, into 
the region where there was calm. 

More than half the tim.e, the skein of islands 

which lock the southeast coast of Burma from 

the open sea, were in sight ; — heavily-wooded ; 

most of them uninhabited and negligible in value, 

except for some tin deposits on a few of them. 
125 



126 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

And such glorious sunsets. In the tropics 
there is httle of that crepuscular light which 
marks the ebbing of day in the northern land. 
Night springs out of its lair and smuts the earth 
soon after the dip of the sun. There is some- 
times, however, an after-glow, generally short, 
which transfigures cloud-land into tumbling, shift- 
ing heaps of almost spectral colors. This is the 
last flash of day. 

THE COAST 

The Irrawaddy river, having its source in 
streams rising in the mountains of Thibet, 
spreads into a broad delta as it flows into the sea. 
It has several mouths, one of them the Rangoon 
river, from which the capital city of Burma takes 
its name. 

The distance from Penang to Rangoon is about 
770 miles. Few of the port cities of Southeast- 
ern Asia are connected by railroads. 

Most of the sailors on the Oriental lines from 
Hong Kong southward and westward are Las- 
cars ; a general name applied to natives of India. 
Our Lascar sailors and stewards were Mohamme- 
dans. It was quite an impressive sight when at 
sunset hour they turned toward Mecca and bowed 
seven times in prayer. The Moslems are punc- 
tilious in the outward observance of their reli- 
gious rites. The observer wonders how much of 
sincerity there is in their formal worship ; 
whether their prayers are only "a sad, mechanic 



EURMA 127 

exercise" ; a selfish reaching out after some per- 
sonal benefit ; or whether they include the inter- 
ests of others than themselves. Is the prayer 
based on pure egoism, or upon the spirit of hu- 
man love? Is it really any prayer at all, or 
merely an apparatus of ritual? Yet all mani- 
festations of worship are impressive. The sunset 
hour; the hush of the ocean solitude; the swarthy 
faces ; the curled turbans and flowing robes ; the 
spudding winds ; the steamer deck ; surely these 
are a romantic setting" for outward devotion. 

Ask a native Indian what his nationality is ; he 
answers "Mohammedan" or "Hindu," according 
to his religion. What a divisive thing rehgion 
often is. The tenacity with which men cling to 
their ancestral faith extinguishes the sense of na- 
tionality and patriotism. 

RANGOON ITS PAGODAS 

Rangoon lies about twenty-six miles above the 
mouth of the river Irrawaddy. The steamer 
crawled slowly up the stream, along reaches of 
flatlands ; the conspicuous objects on the eleva- 
tions or hills being the domes of Buddhistic pago- 
das. As we neared Rangoon we saw the glitter- 
ing spires of the Shwe Dagon and Sule Pagodas, 
the former being probably the finest pagoda in 
the world and the magnet which draws many tour- 
ists to Rangoon. 

Indeed, the Shwe Dagon Pagoda is worthy of 
its reputation. It is one of the few famous 



128 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

buildings which do not disappoint at near ap- 
proach. Some parts of the pagoda are claimed 
to be 2500 years old. However that may be, 
additions have been made from time to time, until 
an immense mass of buildings have been gathered ; 
some of them noble types of Oriental architecture. 
Like nearly all the Buddhist temples in Burma, 
this is set upon a hill; the smaller temples flank- 
ing the central pagoda. All is wildly Oriental 
in color and form. Gargoyles, devils and effigies 
of monsters guard the approaches. The visitor 
enters through a long, rising corridor, which is 
cheapened by peddlers and small booths. The re- 
deeming element in this base use of the pagoda 
grounds is in the flower market. Heaps of flow- 
ers were for sale, mostly by jauntily-dressed Bur- 
mese girls. Some of them were bought for per- 
sonal decoration ; more for off^erings on the many 
shrines of Buddha. The visitor walks through a 
circuit of alleys ; everywhere a new pagoda arises ; 
everywhere statues of the saintly Buddha. 

At the top of the main pagoda is a golden um- 
brella ; the portion below the umbrella is covered 
with solid gold. The outside of many of the pa- 
godas is gilded. Priests, robed in surplices of 
brown silk, walk in the corridors or sit near the 
altars. Beggars and afflicted ones solicit alms. 
Strolling musicians play on instruments. There 
are tea-houses, cafes and dwellings on the temple 
grounds, presumably for priests and acolytes. 

The Burmese are intense Buddhists. The land 



BURMA 129 

has thousands of temples. All are built by pri- 
vate gifts. We are told that, when an appeal 
is made for a new temple, women often offer their 
beloved jewels and bangles, — their most precious 
possessions. These are sold or melted into ma- 
terial for temple ornaments. 

Buddhism is a passive religion. It forbids the 
taking of life. This rule is, of course, often cir- 
cumvented. The Buddhists will eat meat, if 
someone else kills the animal. Fish are eaten, be- 
cause they die a natural death, when taken from 
the water. The priesthood must declare a war 
as holy, before it can be entered upon. Chris- 
tian missionaries speak approvingly of the gen- 
eral good character of Buddhist priests ; these 
are the teachers of Burmese youth. It is rare to 
find a native who cannot read and write. Every 
boy is trained to service as an acolyte in the tem- 
ples. 

The Burmese costumes are as gay as can be. 
No color is too smart. As the sexes dress nearly 
alike, a Burmese crowd means a moving mass of 
pink, white, and almost every bright color. The 
people are civil and courteous ; never dangerous, 
except through frenzy. 

RESOURCES 

Burma is a country which is fast forging ahead 
in progress. It lies to the east of the Bay of 
Bengal ; its area, including the Shan provinces, 
is nearly 237,000 square miles. Its population 



180 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

is between ten and eleven millions, and is fast in- 
creasing. To a casual observer, no Asiatic coun- 
try seems to offer better opportunity for invest- 
ment. The climate is, on the whole, healthy. Its 
forestry is diversified and rich. One of the an- 
cient industries has been the export of teakwood, 
of wliich Burma produces an abundance. The 
country is largely unreclaimed; only about one- 
fifth of the rich soil has been reduced to agricul- 
ture. Almost everything which is grown in the 
tropics will grow here. It is a land of flowers 
and blossoming shrubs. 

Burma has immense mineral deposits ; to de- 
velop these mining interests the British colonial 
government grants liberal concessions. Petro- 
leum tapping has been an industry for a genera- 
tion ; 400 American drillers are employed by local 
oil companies. Tin, gold, precious stones, silver, 
platinum, rhodium and wolfram are among the 
mineral products. Just now, the interest is great 
in the mining of wolfram, which is a very valu- 
able mineral, used in the hardening of steel and 
as filaments in electric lights. 

All these possibilities of industrial and mining 
wealth are giving to the country a lurch forward. 
Rangoon is growing rapidly ; already it has more 
than 300,000 people. 

The Burmese, like the Malayans, are indis- 
posed to manual work, except in the old ways of 
rice (paddy) culture. As the country is well 
watered and the rivers abound in fish, paddy and 



BURMA 131 

water-food are the diet of the peasantry. No 
Burmese have acquired fortunes ; they are not as 
yet infected with the modern wealth-hunger. 
Chinese and Hindus are the laborers. As Upper 
Burma touches the Chinese frontier, there is a 
constant flow of immigration from the Celestial 
Empire. 

The English have controlled Lower Burma 
since 1826; Upper Burma since 1880, when the 
murderous King Thibaw was captured and de- 
throned. 

It is certainly a land of promise. It needs 
roads and development. There is no hostile sen- 
timent toward foreign investors. 

BURMESE LIFE 

The great charm of Burma to the tourist is in 
its brilliant local color; the picturesque costumes 
of the natives ; the freshness and variety of the 
flowers ; the splash and blending of human fami- 
lies ; the flowing bazaars, where almost every 
conceivable thing made by the hand of man is 
ofl'ered for sale ; the fluffs and luster of silks ; silks 
everywhere worn by the fair Burmese girls, the 
stateliest men and by the priests ; the number and 
splendor of the pagodas, with their shining 
spires. Even the ubiquitous crows must be men- 
tioned: cawing everywhere, invading verandas, 
even rooms of houses, flying like dark spirits in 
the courts of the pagodas. They even perch 
upon the heads of the marble statues of the good 



132 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

Buddha, as if they were saucily saying, "Here 
we are safe. Buddha was the tender protector of 
dumb creatures. We have a right to be here." 
No one seems to molest the crows ; flocks of them 
hovering in the sky, flapping their ebony-black 
wings, immune from slaughter. 

Every tourist is supposed to visit a lumber- 
yard, where elephants are employed as beasts of 
burden. Faithful servants are they, too. We 
rode to the river-bank in the delicious morning 
hour. The tide had run out. A load of large 
teak beams had been brought in on rafts, at high 
tide, and were stranded on the muddy flats. 
Four elephants were at work, each controlled by 
a rider. The only weapon of the driver was a 
slight stick which had an iron curve at the end, 
with which he could catch the elephant's ears, if 
need be. The bulky creatures seemed to enjoy 
their work. They wallowed in the mud; a man 
on the ground fastened the big teak beams to the 
elephant with chains. The beast drew it until it 
reached a bridge ; then it was chained to and 
dragged by another elephant. If the beam 
needed replacement, the elephant pushed it with 
feet and proboscis. The riders cling to their 
seats very cleverly, even if the elephant lowers 
his head to the ground. We saw one elephant, 
dragging a long log, lift another with his snout 
on his tusks and thus carry it, steadying it on 
the tusks by a constant movement of the probos- 



BURMA 133 

CIS. The elephants exhibited great intelligence. 
Electric cranes have in part supplanted their 
labor. 

MANDALAY 

Mandalay lies up the Irrawaddy. Kipling has 
given it fame as having a shore-line. It has not ; 
it is inland. Probably, with allowable poetic 
freedom, he used Mandalay, a musical word, as 
a generic name for Burma. Mandalay is a mod- 
ern city. It has a pagoda with more than 700 
temples, and a huge bazaar. 

THE INDIAN COOLIES 

In the late afternoon of each day, when the 
work-hours are over, crowds of Hindu coolies 
gather on the open space on the Strand, as the 
main street in Rangoon is called. No two men 
seem alike. A daub on the face, the color of a 
sash, many slight external distinctions, mark 
some tribal or religious relations, or indicate 
caste. Light as sea-foam, prattling, smoking, 
laughing, the crowds seem as volatile as the crows 
circling above them in the air. They gather and 
separate like shadows. You look upon the liv- 
ing mass ; turn your head, and lo, they are gone. 
Who are they.? What are they.? Are they re- 
alities .f* Do they have thoughts? Or are they 
only so many human automata.? 



XII 

INDIA 

The wealth of Ormus and of Ind: 

Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand. 

Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold. 

Milton. 

The voyage from Rangoon to Calcutta took us 
over the northern part of the Bay of Bengal. 
The distance is about 780 miles. The approach 
to India is by no means impressive. After the 
steamer enters the Hooghly river, — as the delta 
of the Ganges is called, — the water does not 
"suffer a sea-change into something rich and 
strong," but thickens into liquefied mud. The 
coast-soil of India is spongy. Immense quanti- 
ties of silt are poured into the hundred-mouthed 
river. Thus a paste is generated. The channels 
are constantly shifting through the action of 
cross-currents and the meeting of confluent 
streams. The treacherous Hooghly is the dread 
of mariners. The local pilots, who are obliged 
to study each day the caprices of the unruly river, 
receive extraordinary pay. When our steamer 
entered the Hooghly, three pilots were taken on 

board. The point of greatest danger is called 
134 



INDIA 135 

the James and Mary Bar, from the fact of the 
shipwreck of a vessel of that name there. When 
the steamer is entering this narrow channel, 
where three branches of the Hooghly converge, 
and where there is a constant dislocation of the 
clayey sediment, all the life-boats are lowered, in 
view of the possibility of a collision with some 
new-formed shoal, and the passengers are sup- 
posed to be on deck. There is little hope for any 
craft caught in the muddy jaws of the Hooghly 
at this point. There is no floating it from the 
pitiless quicksands : it careens and is swallowed 
like a pebble. 

In spite of all these hazards, the Hooghly car- 
ries an immense commerce. All the shipping, to 
and from Calcutta, must thread its currents and 
pass over its slime. 

India, vast, almost continental in area, can be 
reached only by sea and through the mountain 
passes on the north and east. It has no through 
railroad lines. Except the merchandise, which 
is brought by caravans, its commerce is entirely 
marine. It has thus been secluded from a great 
part of the world by mountain ranges or wastes 
of ocean. Many railroad lines have been pro- 
jected; but, up to the present time, engineering 
difficulties and the great capital required have 
been deterrent obstacles. 

Calcutta is about 120 miles from the Bay of 
Bengal. We passed numerous jute mills. Cal- 
putta is the seat of the jute industry, several brick 



136 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

kilns and cotton mills. There is nothing of the 
picturesque or romantic in the riparian scenery 
of the Ganges. 

CALCUTTA 

Calcutta has been the capital of India since 
the English occupancy. Its history is linked with 
that of the great leaders, Lord Clive and Warren 
Hastings, who won India for England. It is not 
one of the historic cities of India ; it is modern ; 
its roots do not run into the early life of the 
country. It was an inconsiderable place, in 
wealth and population, until it became a center 
of commerce. Its recent growth has been rapid. 
It has now more than 1,100,000 inhabitants; it 
has become the largest city in India. Elaborate 
government buildings have been built from public 
funds; rich merchants and Indian rajahs have 
established sumptuous homes. In fact, the com- 
mon description of Calcutta is as "a city of pal- 
aces." 

In the twinkling of an eye, by proclamation of 
King George at the recent durbar, executing, of 
course, the decision of his ministers, Calcutta is 
to be shorn of its prestige as capital of the In- 
dian Empire ; and ancient Delhi, on the Jumna, is 
to have the honor. If a change was to be made, 
and there are strong arguments for it, Delhi, a 
city around which many of the glorious memories 
in Indian history cluster, is the appropriate place. 
Naturally, the transfer is most unwelcome to Cal- 



INDIA 137 

cutta ; but It was to be. It involves a vast outlay 
of money, which will sorely tax the revenues of 
India. It dislocates many traditions and inter- 
ests. The work of un-doing has already begun. 
Calcutta is too large and rich a city to be shorn 
of its feathers, because it must lose the prestige 
which is associated with a national capital ; 
it must be stripped of this adventitious prop, and 
recoil upon its own resources. The tone of its 
press and the speech of its citizens are bitter when 
the subject of removal is discussed; but the mat- 
ter is beyond the gates of argument. 

EUROPE IN INDIA 

At last, we were in India, the objective point of 
our tour. In our vagarious route, we had taken 
nearly three months to reach it. Perhaps it is 
unwise to anticipate too much from any country; 
even in the ancient home of the Aryan race ; the 
cradle of great systems of religions and philoso- 
phies ; the birthplace of Buddha, whose life and 
teachings have so wonderfully impressed unknown 
millions of men. — Here also has been the home of 
the most persistent aristocracy the world has 
ever known — the Brahmans. Again, in India 
were born two of the most popular of English 
authors, Thackeray and Kipling. In India, Lord 
Macaulay lived for several years as a law com- 
missioner; here also Arthur Wellesley, after- 
wards the Duke of Wellington, first arose to mili- 
tary fame. In the line of generalship and states- 



138 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

manship, India has been the theater where some 
of the ablest men of action whom England has 
produced have exercised their talents. The East 
India Company, through its long history, rivaled 
our modern trusts as a monster monopoly. The 
viceroys, whom England has delegated from time 
to time to administer the complex aifairs of its 
Indian Empire, have generally been men of high 
character and great executive talent. 

Nations have fought like demons for the wealth 
of Ormus and of Ind. Portugal, Holland, France 
and England were the European antagonists. 
Tartar hordes have drenched the sunny fields of 
India with human gore. Persian conquerors have 
pillaged and massacred. Alexander the Great, 
who had pierced the Persian empire as an egg 
shell, thundered to the Djelum river, but the re- 
volt of his Macedonians foiled his military lust 
and dreams of conquest. 

The French at one time nearly ousted the Eng- 
lish from the control of India; but their able gen- 
eral, Dupleix, after splendid services to his un- 
grateful country, returned to Paris, to die a 
pauper. 

India has been a missionary ground for fervid, 
self-sacrificing messengers of the Christian re- 
ligion. The greatest names among them are St. 
Francis Xavier, whose beautiful wife well deserved 
the crown of sainthood, and the benignant Bishop 
Heber of the Church of England, and Schwartz, a 
man of wonderful power. 



INDIA 139 

India's mysticism 

The mysticism of the human mind has found 
riotous expression in India. Religious fanaticism 
has nowhere flamed into greater fire. Here have 
thrived for ages cults and mysteries, hoary and 
venerable, which pass under a mask of novelty in 
the West. Faith-cure, mental science, a nega- 
tion of the efficacy of medicine, a segregation 
of mind and body, belief in refined sorcery, de- 
monology, malicious animal magnetism, — all of 
which have an occasional recrudescence in the 
West, — have been popular beliefs in India for 
ages, and now have schools of professional prac- 
titioners. There is nothing new under India's 
sun. Even the evolutionary philosophy of Her- 
bert Spencer and Darwin, — the cardinal principle 
of modern science, — ^was foreshadowed in the Ve- 
dantic writings of the ancient Aryans. In In- 
dia, the land of dreams and visions, a progeny 
of miracles has influenced the mental life of the 
people. Myth-making is ingrained in Indian 
thought. Sunworshipers, fetich believers, ani- 
mists, occultists, Brahman, Buddhist, Moslem, and 
now the Christian, have made their appeal to the 
inhabitants. A ghostly procession of dead faiths, 
lost illusions, living superstitions, an exuberant 
crop of miracle mongers, have walked its stage. 
The ancient myths have a tremendous vitality. 
They seem to disappear and then re-appear in a 
thousand new forms. It is not at all probable 



140 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

that Christianity, either in its Romanized or Ger- 
manized aspects, will ever be adopted, as a system, 
by the Indians. Before it can percolate into 
the national consciousness, it must be modified; it 
can only be absorbed as the upper stratum over- 
lying the spiritual deposits of the ages. At pres- 
ent, only some seven or eight in a thousand of 
Hindus accept any form of Christianity. 



It is an old proverb, but a true one : "He who 
would bring back the treasures of the Indies must 
carry these treasures there with him." India is 
a most complex country. That a fleeting tourist 
may get anything but an unprofitable gluttony 
of the eye, from a brief visit here, he must have a 
bedrock of knowledge of Indian history and in- 
stitutions. Even with this, intellectual honesty 
will compel him to admit that he has appropri- 
ated but little of the real India. A very intelli- 
gent Englishman, who had been in official life in 
India for many years, said to me: "In my long 
residence here I have visited almost every place of 
importance, have seen the notable ruins and have 
tried to learn something of India ; but, to be 
honest, I feel that I have hardly touched it. I 
know next to nothing about it ; and I do not know 
anyone who knows more. India is almost beyond 
understanding." 



INDIA 141 

INDIAN USAGES 

There are two Calcuttas ; one that of English 
ofRcials, merchants, bankers, and of the military 
class. These make quite a parade in govern- 
ment buildings, hotels, clubrooms, theaters, auto- 
mobiles, business-circles and social life. 

The other and real Calcutta is that of the In- 
dians ; it is an immense vortex in which the Eng- 
lish contingent is only a molecule. Leave the 
commercial center of parks, squares and western 
buildings ; go into the so-called native quarters 
and watch their surging life. You will find that 
the Indians who have been gathered into Cal- 
cutta, from the backwash of village life, by the 
in-draught of the capital city, are essentially as 
Oriental, clannish and impervious to modern im- 
pulses, as their forbears were centuries ago. Ex- 
cept among the educated classes and native of- 
ficials, few Indians have rubbed off from the Eng- 
lish anything below the surface. Western 
thought and ideals are sprayed into foam when 
they break against Indian conservatism and 
superstitions. As his fathers were, so generally 
seems to be the Indian of to-day; encased in the 
same immemorial customs, narrowed by the same 
limitations of outlook; trussed up in the same 
pride of caste ; a victim to many of the same hid- 
eous superstitions. 

Kalighat Temple is one of the most sacred 



142 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

shrines in India: devoted to the worship of the 
mythical goddess Kali. According to the Indian 
myth, when her body was dismembered by order 
of the gods, one of her fingers dropped to the 
earth at this spot. It is believed that it was found 
and that it is now preserved in a golden box 
behind the heart of the idol in one of the altars 
of this temple. We had anticipated seeing an 
ornamental building which, even if typifying an 
obsolete paganism, would represent something of 
noble Indian art. What a disillusion awaited us. 
The tramcar took us through a filthy Indian vil- 
lage. A Hindu priest escorted us through the 
temple. Everything was revolting. Crowds of 
frenzied people were rushing to a pond of muddy 
water diverted through pipes from the sacred 
Ganges. All plunged into the dirty pool, utter- 
ing prayers to Eali. Sacred cows wandered in 
the precincts of the temple. The buildings were 
small and ugly. In one of them a mass of wor- 
shipers, mostly women, were drinking and 
bottling water which was brought into the temple 
from the pond, frantically grasping it and invok- 
ing the blessing of Kali. 

There are several temples, none of them large. 
In at least two of them are hideous idols of Kali; 
her tongue protruding from her mouth. In the 
idol where the mythical finger is supposed to be 
boxed, the tongue and part of the head are of 
gold. Only believers are allowed to enter the 
inner sanctuaries. Hinduism permits the admis- 



INDIA 143 

sion of no converts. It is a birth-right religion. 
Before these idols worshipers prostrated them- 
selves and prayed. Their castes or special wor- 
ship were indicated by a streak of powder or 
paint traced on the forehead. 

One of the courts was running with blood of 
goats, sacrificed by their owners to the goddess. 
As we approached, for we were allowed to enter 
this court, a goat was brought in ; one priest laid 
it upon the stone altar, passing its head under 
an iron frame ; another priest raised the sacri- 
ficial ax and chopped off the head. Our priest- 
guide told us that generally a hundred goats 
are sacrificed at this altar each day. 

The courts swarmed with mendicants. A leper 
thrust out his handless, fleshless forearm and cried 
for alms. Wretched creatures touched their eye- 
less sockets, or rubbed their sores, or pointed to 
paralyzed limbs, moaning for gifts. All sorts of 
images and articles of Hindu worship were of- 
ered for sale. Wandering minstrels sang invoca- 
tions to Kali, and then asked to be paid for so 
doing. The sacred cows looked fat and sleek; 
many of the human beings degraded and 
wretched. The stench was almost unbearable; 
blood, dust, dirt, slime and offal contributing 
their quota to the reek. 

Many of the worshipers are pilgrims, often 
poor people, who come from distant provinces of 
India in order to bathe once in the sacred pond 
and to bow before the finger of Kali. 



144 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

It must be remembered that the Hindu or Brah- 
manical faith numbers more than 200,000,000 ad- 
herents; two-thirds of the population of India. 
There are some 60,000,000 Mohammedans in 
India. The impact of Christian missionaries 
and the religion of the English over-lords have 
reached more of the lower castes or the outcasts 
than the upper castes. The bulk of the Indians 
are petrified in the social strata of unknown ages. 



Go into another quarter of Calcutta, where 
many thousands of natives live and carry on busi- 
ness. Such precincts in Japan, China, Java, the 
Malay Peninsula and in Egypt have a mild inter- 
est. They are bubbling fountains of yellow hu- 
manity: generally tricked out in colors, with lan- 
terns burning or with bunting flying. Often 
they are dirty : often they exhibit ignoble living. 
The bazaars, or business centers of native shops 
in Calcutta lack this interest. Their color may 
be called a bitter-light. The people look wretch- 
edly poor, unhealthy, stunted. They stare at 
the stranger with vacuous eyes. Everything 
seems somber and lack-luster. The filth and reek 
of the Orient are here: all that is squalid: the 
charm is missing. 

It is of some interest to know that the name 
Calcutta is a corruption of the word Kalighat, 
the river bank where the goddess Kali is wor- 
shiped and where the finger touched the earth. 



XIII 

INDIA 

(Continued) 

Know'st thou the land where the lemon-trees bloom, 
Where the gold orange glows in the deep thicket's 

gloom. 
Where a wind ever soft from the blue heaven blows, 
And the groves are of laurel and myrtle and rose? 

Goethe. 

THE HIMALAYAS 

Few countries present greater diversities of 
scenery than India. In a few hours one can shift 
from the sunny plains of Bengal to the Hima- 
layan mountains, which begin in Nepaul, Sikkim 
and the other northern provinces, and end in the 
great plateau of Thibet. The upper terminal 
station of the railway system is Darjeeling, which 
is about 380 miles to the northward of Calcutta. 
The railroad carries the tourist through an un- 
usual range of scenery. Starting from Calcutta 
he runs along the plains until he leaves the train 
for a steamer which crosses the Ganges. As 
the start is late in the afternoon, when the burn- 
ing sun is low in the sky, the passage over the 
mysterious river is in the early evening. When 

we crossed, the moon was rising and throwing a 
14^ 



146 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

phantom splendor on the water. The crossing 
being diagonal, there was a distance of about thir- 
teen miles from landing to landing; much of it 
over shoals. Constant soundings of depths are 
made, as the channel is hardly the same on any 
two successive days. The station on the right 
bank of the Ganges is 116 miles from Calcutta; 
that on the other side is called Sari Ghat. At 
the latter station we took sleepers, uncomfortable 
enough to one used to American railway service. 
No bedding, towels or soap are furnished to the 
passenger on any of the Indian railways. 

In the morning, after a trying night in the 
sleeper, we reached Silliguri. At this point, we 
were transferred to the narrow gauge Darjeel- 
ing Himalayan Railway. We reached Darjeel- 
ing after a run of nearly six hours from Silli- 
guri. The gauge of the mountain railway is 
only two feet. Perhaps the railway may have 
its counterpart in Switzerland, California or 
Colorado; probably in Mexico; but it certainly is 
a work of consummately skillful engineering. 



The climb to Darjeeling, which is nearly 7,000 
feet above the sea-level, is full of surprises and 
glimpses of magnificent scenery. The Ganges, 
the shining plains of Bengal, wandering rivers, 
which have found their level after issuing from 
the mountain gorges, are gradually left behind, 
as the lithe train springs up the steep highway. 



INDIA 147 

Before us were the hither foot-hills of the majestic 
Himalayas, separated by glooming valleys, hir- 
sute with trees. We cut through jungles and a 
wilderness of tropical growths. Soon these 
ceased, and an army of high trees lined the 
track; especially of the ever-present bamboo. 
Fruit trees were sprayed into white blossoms, even 
in mid-winter ; ferns, with spreading tendrils, 
were climbing on walls and cliffs. The most in- 
teresting of all the vegetable sights was the tea 
plantations, of which there seemed to be no end. 
The tea is planted up to a height of 5,000 feet. 
Some of the mountain-sides were entirely utilized 
for the culture of this crop. We were told that 
15,000,000 pounds of tea are harvested annually 
in this region of diifuse hills and curving valleys. 
The tea-plant is tough enough to withstand the 
cold winds that sweep down from the mountains, 
and finds enough nourishment in the rocky soil to 
grow into vigorous life and to ripen. 

The train dashed through rock cuttings ; often 
dropped into waves of fog; then emerged into 
the brightness of Indian sunshine. A consider- 
able part of the track runs along the cart-road, 
which was built by the government for the pas- 
sage of English soldiers, before the railway was 
constructed. Now garrisons are stationed at 
Darjeeling and several other places near by. The 
main military use, however, of this region is as a 
sanitarium for sufferers from fevers so often con- 
tracted in the hot plains. Civilians and soldiers 



148 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

now fly to this great reservoir of invigorating 
coolness. Darjeeling is to the Province of Ben- 
gal what Simla is to the court retinue of British 
India — a summer residential quarter. 

Sinking into seas of fog, then rising from them ; 
watching the cordon of stilted mountains ; look- 
ing down upon the tin roofs of the cottages of 
the hillsmen ; gliding through Oriental bazaars ; 
seeing here and there a missionary station ; curl- 
ing around loops and reverses in side-tracks, when 
the engine twisted in coil upon coil around the 
flanks of a mountain, or was avoiding an abysmal 
canyon ; hearing the gurgle of an occasional 
waterfall that was tumbling down a sheer cliffy ; 
then the train was stopped at Ghoom station, — 
the top-notch of the railway journey, 7,407 feet 
above sea level. From this apex, descending 
about 400 feet in a distance of four miles, we 
perched at last at Darjeeling. The town has 
about 30,000 people and a considerable number 
of government buildings, boarding schools, mis- 
sionary stations, military cantonments and hos- 
pitals. It is built upon a ridge, around which 
is a congeries of mountains and hills, watered by 
intersecting rivers. It is the frontier town near 
the divisional line between British India and In- 
dependent Sikkim. 



The region is extremely romantic. It is diffi- 
cult to imagine more stupendous mountain 



INDIA 149 

scenery. The Himalayas are the highest moun- 
tains in the world. They are the gathering 
ground of monsoons and fogs. The annual rain- 
fall in Darjeeling is about 125 inches. 

It was a sharp change from the sultriness of 
Calcutta to the cold of Darjeeling, where the 
temperature falls twenty-five degrees in a night. 



All travel has its disappointments. We had 
made the tiresome journey for the purpose of see- 
ing the monstrous mountains which are poetically 
called "The Roof of the World." We were 
greedy to set eyes upon the highest protuberances 
of the earth's surface. The best point for the 
observation of the snow-cinisted Himalayas, in the 
neighborhood, is Tiger Hill, an eminence 2,000 
feet higher than Darjeeling, about six miles dis- 
tant from it. It can be reached by pony or by 
a sedan-chair, locally styled "a dandy," carried 
by five stalwart mountaineer natives. So we 
arose at three o'clock next morning, and in the 
cold and impenetrable darkness were carried, 
some on ponies, some in dandies, to Tiger Hill. 
It was a strange journey, in desolate silences, 
over rough hill-roads, through darkling valleys. 
Our desire was to catch the glorious sunrise on 
the supreme mountains. But, alas for the fal- 
laciousness of human hopes. In about two hours 
we, chilled to the marrow, reached Tiger Hill, 
only to suffer disappointment. A sheet of cloud 



150 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

and tog wrapped the mountains. Our vision 
could penetrate hardly five hundred feet from the 
hill. We mounted the observation tower, shiv- 
ering with cold, while the clammy fog smutched 
our faces. The fog grew thicker and thicker. 
All we could do was to swallow our regret and re- 
turn to the hotel. It should be said that, even 
from Tiger Hill, it is rare to see more than a 
shadowy outline of Mount Everest, the world's 
bumper mountain, 28,994 feet high. It must be 
seen mostly "in the mind's eye" ; but Kinchen- 
junga, 28,156 feet high, the nearest rival to Ever- 
est, is often seen; also a line of other peaks con- 
nected by ragged drifts of everlasting snows, 
even in Darjeeling. At times, more than twelve 
peaks may be counted, each rising above 20,000 
feet. 

KINCHENJUNGA 

We stayed four days at Darjeeling, waiting 
for the drying of the fog. Only once did we 
catch a glimpse of Kinchenjunga; that had to 
suffice ; and it was very much. If we failed to see 
all that we had anticipated, it was a good deal to 
see the second highest mountain in the world. 
The setting was magnificent. The fog was lap- 
ping the valleys. The sun was fighting its way 
through the misty shrouds. Ranges of moun- 
tains now tossed off the fog as a feather ; then the 
fog again crept over their disgraced faces. It 
was a wild carousal of wind, sun, mist and cloud. 



INDIA 151 

On the sudden, as we peered upward into the 
northern sky, there was a rift in the clouds. 
They slunk away for a few minutes, as though 
the Great Spirit had breathed upon them. In 
the rift, serene and shining, Kinchenjunga raised 
its awful, jagged head; dressed in a white veil of 
eternal snows. Glittering, with folds of light pass- 
ing into billows of startling glory poured out 
from some fountain of the sky; "clothed in white 
samite, mystic, wonderful" ; opulent in all that 
makes veracious majesty, the proud mountain 
smiled upon us for a few minutes. 

The glorious vision, ephemeral as a meteor, 
seemed almost an illusion ; "some false creation, 
proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain" ; a 
phantasmagoria; a dream. But no; iCinchen- 
junga was there with its canopies of snow. We 
knew that, beneath its white crown, 11,000 feet of 
perpetual snow were resting. There was the 
mountain, ringed high in the breathless air, dis- 
daining the impudent fogs and clouds that sucked 
away at its breast, and drained the heat of its 
ally, the sun. 

The giant mountain triumphed over its vapor- 
ous foes only for a few minutes. Soon the fog 
furrowed its face ; then, once more, all was gray 
mist. 

THE HILLSMEN 

Superb as is the mountain scenery in Darjeel- 
ing and vicinity, there are other interests for the 



152 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

tourist. The human element is an alloy of many 
races of rude, uncouth hillsmen. It is a jumble 
of humankind of which the Western world is gen- 
erally ignorant. Here are the Nepaulese from 
Nepaul, the Moslem from Kashmir, the Thibetan, 
who has migrated from the vast un-charted high- 
lands of Thibet: other ancient races are the 
Bhootias from Bhootan, and the Pathans. Most 
of these peoples, — and others whom it is hard to 
name, — are intense Buddhists; and their Budd- 
hism is mixed with old superstitions. Their 
shrines are on many hills. A common sight is 
that of handkerchiefs and pieces of cloth hanging 
from trees or clothes-lines, on which their prayers 
are written. The people believe that the winds 
fluttering their prayer-cloths will transmit their 
seekings to their divinities. Bhootan and Thibet 
furnish a host of lamas or Buddhistic priests. 
These also act as doctors ; but their practice is of 
the most approved form of faith-cure. The lama 
has no scientific knowledge of medicine; he at- 
tempts cures by prayers and incantations ; all the 
patient needs to do is to have faith. What a de- 
lightfully simple theory ; how much easier than 
surgical operations and drugs. 

The Dalai Lama, whom the Chinese have ex- 
pelled from Thibet, is now living in Darjeeling. 
He is regarded as the re-incarnation of Buddha; 
and is reverenced by the simple-minded hillsmen 
as a god. Crowds of pilgrims pour down, on 



INDIA 153 

foot or on horseback, through the mountain 
passes of Thibet, to gaze upon his heavenly coun- 
tenance and have his blessing. A caravan of 
Thibetans or Bhootias is a strange picture; peo- 
ple with brown faces ; ears, noses, often feet hung 
with rude jewels ; coarse clothing, sometimes very 
dirty. The pilgrims swing their prayer-wheels 
and, with interminable iteration, mutter their 
prayer, om-mani-padmi-om : "Hail to the 
prince of the lotus and jewel." This is droned 
by lamas and pilgrims from morning to night. 
Their fanaticism seems harmless. In the yard of 
the Dalai Lama's house we saw swarms of pil- 
grims, men, women, and children, dressed in wild 
garb, who had come hundreds of miles to bow be- 
fore their spiritual lord. Ignorant, childish, 
primitive; these pilgrims regard their lama as the 
link that connects their squalid lives with the di- 
vine. 

A SUNDAY BAZAAR 

Sunday is the day for the bazaar, or outdoor 
market. What a scene it was. From the early 
morning peasants came thronging into Darjeel- 
ing with their produce and wares. Squatted on 
the ground, with their goods exposed on mats 
before them, smoking cigarettes or pipes of enor- 
mous size, they awaited customers. Some women 
were loaded so heavily with jeAvelry and trinkets 
that one almost wondered how they could stand 
up under the burden, especially as many carried 



154 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

babies on their backs. What a hub-bub of chat- 
ter; what higgling and huckstering. The un- 
wary tourist was common prey. Every native 
had something to sell to him; articles which 
seem to belong to the realm of hobgobblin life. 
Many of them have a religious significance. The 
price asked at first is outrageous ; the seller does 
not expect to get it. Make him or her but one 
offer and you will be followed as by a pack of 
wolves. Everyone who has the same article for 
sale thrusts it into your face; this process goes 
on until you buy or wave all the pestiferous crowd 
away. 

Thibetan and Bhootian women have a hard lot. 
They are muscular ; nearly as large and strong 
as the men. They do the hardest kind of work, 
that demanding the most physical exertion. 
They act as porters at the hotels ; strap a trunk 
or heavy bag on their backs ; fasten the strap 
around their foreheads, and tug up the steep hill. 
Often an empty-handed man may be seen follow- 
ing them. Women work on the roads, and even 
little girls break stone and carry it on their backs 
for a long distance. Surely in the sweat of their 
face do these rugged womejn eat their bread. 
They turn their prayer-wheels, then repeat the 
charmed words endlessly, drudge, moil, dig and 
bend under weary burdens. Their pleasure seems 
to come from maternity, from chewing the betel 
leaf and from the weekly bazaar. Hither they 
trudge from their lonely cabins on the hillsides, 



INDIA 155 

carrying something which they have raised or 
made. A bazaar is a revealer of the inner life of 
the peasantry. There is a wildness in it which 
approaches picturesqueness. 

MOUNTAIN SCENERY 

The last day of our visit at Darjeeling gave 
a promise of a sun-burst, which would dissipate 
the snubbing fogs and open the Himalayan range 
to our straining eyes; but Kinchenjunga (a 
Hindu told us that the name means "the chain 
of gold"), like a Moslem woman, did not unveil 
her white face. Our glimpse of her had been a 
sort of penny-in-a-slot affair. Four days of 
waiting; one brief view. The next day, — ah, 
what a fateful word to-morrow is, — a day that 
never comes, for it reaches us dressed as to-day, 
— we were told that the fog lifted for a while. 

How true are the poet's words : "Tis distance 
lends enchantment to the view." To see Kinchen- 
junga at a distance of forty miles, when every 
facet of its immense bulk is transfigured into 
silver ; when a lacing of snow chastens every pin- 
nacle and freckle, every thrust of cliff and jag, 
every distortion, — into a symmetry of phenom- 
enal beauty, — is a delight to the eye. But what 
would an ascent of the mountain mean? what 
beauty could there be in a close view.? Then, the 
mountain would lose its harmony. It would be 
found to be a chaos of cliffs, valleys, spurs, pla- 
teaus, torrents, sheeted ice; of sides scoriated by 



156 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

frost and snow; of treacherous glaciers and 
moraines ; of sunless valleys and scarped chasms. 
All sense of harmony would disappear; all would 
return to the formless and void. It is distance 
which furnishes the index and correlates the limbs 
of the giant. 

AU the story writers have always made giants 
stupid ; dwarfs cunning. Few of the world's 
greatest men have been over-large in size. Bulk 
is not power, unless directed by a co-ordinating 
intelligence. The gnat that flies in the air, the 
little bird that wings its solitary way through 
the silences of the Himalayas, has more dynamic 
power than Kinchenjunga. They are vital; 
the mountain is inert, a mass of sodden rock and 
dirt. The snows must wash its dirty face; the 
winds must fan the circling mists away ; the sun- 
light must paint each part, as an arc in a circle 
of delight; the human eye must interpret the 
whole, from the brain, — and then, beauty, light, 
harmony, purpose, come into action; and 
the mass of rubbish, ice and rock, becomes radiant 
as a vision of the New Jerusalem descending from 
heaven upon earth. Kinchenjunga came and 
went before our eyes like an exhalation, a mi- 
rage, a fire-fly, an air-bubble ; but it was an over- 
whelming reality. 

CALCUTTA AGAIN 

On our return from Darjeeling to Calcutta, 
yre crossed the Ganges at sunrise. A burst of 



INDIA 157 

flame, burning' through the chilling* air, enfolded 
river and plain under a burnish of gold. 

Our second visit in Calcutta furnished an op- 
portunity to' visit an ornate Jain Temple, and 
to make a more careful examination of the Mu- 
seum. This is a rich collection of Asiatic relics, 
curios, arts and religious emblems. It is 
especially rich in a collection of the handiwork 
of Thibet, and the region from which we had 
just returned. We saw that the hillsmen have a 
sense of art and a cunning of the hand in the 
manufacture of textiles and working of metals, 
which indicate a higher order of mentality than 
their squalid life and infantile ways had revealed 
to us. 



XIV 

INDIA 

(Continued) 

The fair humanities of old religion^ 
The power, the beauty, and the majesty. 
That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain. 
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, 
Or chasms and watery depths, — all these have van- 
ished : 
They live no longer in the faithi of reason. 

Coleridge. 

BENARES, THE HOLY CITY 

From Calcutta it was a ride of one night to Ben- 
ares on the Ganges : the city sacred to the ancient 
Hindu faith. Except for its religious symbol- 
ism, there is little of interest in Benares. Its na- 
tive quarters are dirty in the extreme ; its indus- 
tries are primitive. But it is, nevertheless, a city 
of great renown. At least a million pilgrims 
visit it every year. There is never a day when 
long lines of turbaned heads and naked feet may 
not be seen on its streets : of Indians who have 
come from far and near to find cleansing in the 
sacred waters of the Ganges. 

The religious element enters most seriously in 
158 



INDIA 159 

Indian life. It is the wedge that separates races : 
the fulcrum upon which native authority rests : 
it controls education, aligns castes, determines 
the status of women, and reduces one-sixth of the 
population to the degrading condition of pariahs, 
or outcasts. It has been the source of mon- 
strous fanaticism : such as thuggery, sutteeism, 
or the burning of widows on their husbands' fu- 
neral pyres ; child-widowhood ; infanticide ; the 
perversions of fakirs ; the juggernaut ; and self- 
mutilation. Some of these monstrosities in a 
milder form were known to early and medieval 
Christianity. They spring from an excessive 
asceticism;, or principle of renunciation. English 
law has suppressed dangerous forms of fanaticism 
in India: education, a common industrial purpose, 
and a growth of the social conscience, will tone 
down these extravagancies which are the spawn 
of intellectual degradation. 



Let us imagine ourselves in a river-boat on the 
Ganges, following the shore line of Benares, at an 
early hour in the morning. As we have ridden 
from the hotel, we have passed crowds of pilgrims 
hastening to the bathing ghats, where the ab- 
lutions are performed. When we walked down 
the steps of the ghat and entered the boat, early 
as it was, we found thousands ahead of us. 
What a living picture was unrolled before our 
eyes ; such as can be seen nowhere but in India. 



160 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

There are five special bathing ghats for pil- 
grims: some of them simple, some ornate. The 
rajahs of Indian provinces and wealthy natives 
have built a long line of palaces along the river 
bank. In front of these are the ghats ; stone 
steps lead down to the water; some ghats have 
pavilions ; others huge umbrellas ; some, wicker 
cages ; a few have houses ; all these for the se- 
clusion of high-caste women whose faces may 
never be seen outside their households. 

Let us watch the crowds streaming down the 
stone steps of the several ghats. All ages, sizes, 
many races, are represented. Every face is 
swarthy; so bright colors in raiment prevail. 
What a flutter of gaudy silks and satins as a 
high-caste crowd approaches ; almost every color 
dances in the wind ; the flowing outer garments 
are dashed from the person, laid down on the 
steps, and the wearer appears in bathing clothes. 
Every bather carries a brightly polished metallic 
urn, in which to preserve some of the holy liquid. 
Some throw wreaths of yellow flowers into the 
river before they enter. Most of the bathers 
engage in silent prayer or meditation for a mo- 
ment before plunging. 

Here comes a hurrying crowd of dust-stained 
pilgrims, perhaps from some remote part of In- 
dia; no doubt, foot-sore and jaded. This is to be 
their first bath in the holy river ; but they cannot 
take the plunge until they can show a priest's 
certificate that they have made a circuit of all the 



INDIA 161 

shrines in Benares, along the holy roads fringed 
with trees. This penance imposes a walk of 
forty-five miles, which requires five days. All 
this self-imposed, rigorous labor is more than re- 
paid by the zealot's heavenly anticipation of his 
first purifying bath; which will wash away his 
sins and help to prepare him for eternal felicity. 
They rush down the steps, with hot zeal; jump 
into the river ; plunge and plunge, again and 
again ; inhale the water ; suck it into their mouths ; 
spurt it back into the river; pray while they are 
bathing ; throw themselves on the river's bosom ; 
pass the water between their hands ; probably 
drink some of it, turbid as it is. Such scenes are 
going on simultaneously at many ghats. 

The favorite hour for bathing is at sunrise. 
As the sun flames across the river in the eastern 
skies, many bathers slowly pour out a libation 
from their urns; stand and watch the sun-god in 
silent adoration, as the river reddens under the 
solar rays ; when the vessel is emptied, dip it full 
again, and retreat up the steps, keeping face 
towards the sun. 

All the river cities in India have burning ghats, 
where dead bodies are cremated. We visited one 
in Calcutta, and saw the body of a sweet-faced, 
lustrous-eyed boy crackling in the fire. Around 
it were a crowd of men and boys, — very likely his 
nearest relatives, — not one of whom showed the 
slightest emotion. No woman was present. The 
men seemed pleased to show us the un-edifying 



162 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

sight and, as we were leaving, demanded money ; 
picked up some calcined bones and tried to sell 
them to us. The vulgarity and heartlessness 
of the whole performance were the repelling parts. 
Probably this method of disposing of corpses 
is wise in a climate like that of India. 

On the ghats at Benares, we saw the smoke 
rising from the pyres where some of India's teem- 
ing millions were undergoing combustion, after 
life's fitful fever was over. The bodies of animals, 
and sometimes those of children, are cast into the 
Ganges. 

As we left the bathing ghats, we observed a 
small crowd of natives gathered at a street corner. 
A grave-faced clergyman, whose garb showed that 
he was of the ministry of the Church of England, 
and an Indian convert were holding services in 
the native language. The native preacher made 
a short exhortation, after which they sang in 
duet a Christian hymn, which we could not under- 
stand in its alien version. The crowd seemed 
to take but languid interest. 

As all religions spring from the same source, 
man's struggle to connect his poor being with the 
eternal, perhaps a better method of solving the 
problem would be to emphasize those points which 
all religions have in common; to purge supersti- 
tions, to lead away from degrading rites which 
belong to the dark ages, to teach the dignity of 
human character, and to enrich the residual value 
of all faiths — a spiritualized morality. But the 



INDIA 163 

problem is terribly vast. At all events religion 
is a growth. Its roots must be imbedded in the 
recesses of national consciousness. 

THE MONKEY AND GOLDEN TEMPLES 

The Benares of to-day is not ancient. Con- 
quest and ruin have several times rifted its life 
and torn away the old landmarks. When the 
stranger sees the mud huts of the natives, he can 
easily see also how unsubstantial an ancient city 
was. Like Memphis and Thebes of the Egypt 
of the Pharaohs, built of baked mud, a wash of 
war, a pestilence, a catastrophe, a massacre, 
work ruin in a short time. So Benares has been 
uneasy in its location. It has not been a con- 
tinuing city. It now has no temples or build- 
ings more than a few hundred years old. Dingy, 
blistered, they are only of fungus growth. Amer- 
ica has buildings nearly as old. 

Two temples of the Hindu faith are the cen- 
ter of religious interest in Benares ; — the Durga, 
or Monkey Temple, and the Bisheswar, or Golden 
Temple. Both are hideous expressions of 
idolatry. In the former, the monkey is the 
sacred animal. The impish creatures grin and 
scamper through the courts of the temple, fed by 
the priests from offerings of worshipers. In 
the latter, the cow and bull are sacred. Thou- 
sands of worshipers throng its courts and bow 
at the altars. In the outer court there is the 
statue of a bull, garlanded with wreaths. The 



164 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

live cow and bull are in the holy of holies. A 
gilded tower, which is really a work of art, gives 
to the temple its popular name. 

HINDUISM AND THEGSOPHY 

Benares is an educational center. Many 
schools are maintained; some endowed, some pub- 
lic. A Hindu College was endowed by a rich 
native for the instruction of young men in the 
ancient faith. Here some 1,500 youths are gath- 
ered from all parts of India. A very intelligent 
young Brahman conducted us through it. His 
mind was quick and responsive : his English excel- 
lent. His interpretation of the relation of 
Hinduism to modern thought showed that the 
scientific leaven is working in the best minds of 
India. He has rationalized the faith of his 
fathers, as many Christians have done with some 
of the legends of the Bible. 

Near this college is the Theosophical School 
conducted by that remarkable woman, Mrs. An- 
nie Besant, and her assistants. We hoped to 
meet her and to learn something of the relation 
of Hinduism, with its belief in re-incarnation, to 
modern Theosophy; but failed to do so. One of 
her assistants explained to us that Theosophists 
believe that Hinduism has retained more of orig- 
inal truth, revealed by God to primitive man, 
than any other religion: Theosophy sought to 
change no man's faith, but to clear all faiths of 
error and teach the everlasting nature of per- 



INDIA 165 

sonality, the cycles of being, and the re-incarna- 
tion of every life. India is indeed a congenial 
home for such a faith. 

CAWNPORE AND LUCKNOW 

Of these cities, Cawnpore is unattractive ; Luck- 
now is very attractive ; a city of fine homes, spa- 
cious avenues and parks, many public buildings. 

Both cities have their historical interest from 
their close relation with the awful Indian Mutiny 
of 1857. 

In Cawnpore occurred the massacre of the Eng- 
lish garrison, which had surrendered under the 
promise of safety from Nana, the rebel leader, 
one of the vilest names in Indian history; — and 
the unspeakable massacre of 125 women and chil- 
dren. Even the mutinous Sepoys refused to do 
this bloody work; butchers were turned into the 
building where the helpless prisoners were con- 
fined. All were murdered with knives or swords ; 
their corpses were dragged to and thrown into a 
well. There they remain. The ghastly place of 
sepulture is now enclosed by a screen-fence of 
stone; over the well stands a marble figure, with 
outstretched arms, each holding a palm, of the 
Angel of the Resurrection. Over the gate-way in 
the screen is the legend: "These are they which 
came out of great tribulation." It should be 
said that, shocking as the butchery was, no 
woman was violated. Naturally, the English 
took terrible yengeaijce on the murderers. A me- 



166 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

morial church now stands in the grounds of the 
Cawnpore residency, in which are tablets on which 
are engraved the names of the officers and men 
massacred by the cruel Nana and his army. 

Cawnpore is surely a place of sad memories. 

Its present importance is as a trade center. 
Its bazaar or market is vast. A moving crowd 
of merchants and peddlers comes and goes on 
every train. The Oriental is indifferent to time. 
He calmly lies down for hours, even all night, on 
the platforms near the station, or on the ground; 
wraps himself in his blanket, and awaits the com- 
ing or going of the train as mildly as though 
time was of no moment. 

Lucknow has a Residency of impressive his- 
torical interest. Here we were shown through 
the fort where the English garrison sustained 
with incredible heroism the long and frightful 
siege of the mutineers. A recital of this great 
test of endurance is blood-stirring. Here Law- 
rence was killed; here the noble Havelock wore 
himself out and died; here were tears and heart- 
breaks ; sleepless nights, anxious days, hunger 
and thinned ranks ; here Jennie, the Scotch lassie, 
had her famous dream; here all seemed lost and 
the hapless garrison — only a remnant of which 
was left — ^with the women and children, would 
have shared the fate of their countrymen at 
Cawnpore, had not the English army at last suc- 
cored them. 

Great reading is the record of the English sol- 



INDIA 167 

diery in the Mutiny. A little more than a half- 
century has intervened. Now all is peace. Birds 
sing; flowers gush; the fields are carpeted in 
green ; all bloodstains are washed away. A new 
India is rising. The Sikhs, once mutinous, form 
a large part of the loyal native army. The 
Gourkhas are as loyal and true now as then. 

ALLAHABAD 

On our way from Benares to Cawnpore, we 
paused a few hours at Allahabad. This city is 
situated at the confluence of the Ganges and 
Jumna rivers. It is one of the sacred cities of 
India. The week before we were there, one of 
the sacred weeks in the Hindu faith, according 
to the newspapers, at least 2,000,000 pilgrims 
bathed in the Ganges there. Allahabad figured 
in the Indian Mutiny. It is a fortified city ; the 
wall having been built by Akbar, the greatest of 
Moghul emperors. The city is an educational 
center. It has little to interest a tourist. 
Within the fort lines is one of the Asoka pillars. 
Asoka was an Indian emperor, who attempted 
to unite all the people of India under the Bud- 
dhistic faith ; and for that purpose caused stone 
pillars to be erected in many places in India, on 
each of which were legends containing religious 
ascriptions. 

SARNATH 

When at Benares, we rode out to the buried 
city of Sarnath, where many Buddhistic remains 



168 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

have been exhumed. Here we saw another of the 
Asoka pillars. Tradition relates that Buddha 
here preached his first sermon, after his illumina- 
tion, also that, at one time, there were 1,000 
Buddhistic temples here. Buddhism had faded 
out as a system in Indian life, even before the 
Mohammedan conquest. The finishing stroke 
came to Sarnath, when Aurungzebe, the last of 
the really powerful Moghul Emperors, reduced to 
ashes all the temples and memorials of Buddha, in 
this spot once so sacred. 

Buddhism lingers by absorption in much of 
Hinduism ; but, as a system, it fled to the outly- 
ing provinces, Ceylon, Nepaul, Burmah, Siam and 
Thibet. Like the Prince of Peace, the Light of 
Asia was disowned in his native land. 



XV 

INDIA. 

(Continued) 

Think^ in this batter'd caravanserai 
Whose portals are alternate night and day. 
How sultan after sultan with his pomp 
Abode his destin'd hour, and went his way. 

Rubaiyat. 

AGRA 

Agra and Delhi rank high among the most in- 
teresting cities of the world. Both were capitals 
of the Moghul Empire. About the year 1,000 
the Mohammedan invasion of India began with 
Mahmud, "Allah-breathing Lord," and was un- 
ceasing, until Timour, or Tamerlane, led his Mon- 
golian hosts from the mountains and plains of 
Central Asia, with merciless savagery ; returned in 
triumph, leaving behind him pillaged cities, myr- 
iads of murdered Indians, and carrying back im- 
mense booty. Timour's successors conquered and 
lived in a large part of India ; founded the Mog- 
hul Empire, which probably was the most 
splendid in architecture and barbaric magnificence 
that human history has known. Some of the 

Moghul Emperors, notably Baber and Akbar, 
169 



170 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

were men of great ability. They built palaces 
and mosques of almost inestimable cost. Most of 
India lay at their feet; the old civilization was 
passing; their power was unlimited; their sub- 
jects were their slaves. 

The greatest builders among the Moghul Em- 
perors were Akbar the Great and Shahjahan. It 
is mainly the mosques, tombs, forts and palaces 
built by those, say from the middle of the 16th 
to the last of the 17th century, which excite the 
admiration of tourists. 

In Agra and Delhi those emperors spent money 
with lavish hand. The style of architecture re- 
sembles the Moorish and Arabic. Some of the 
mosques suggest the round-domed Greek Ortho- 
dox churches in Russia. French and Italian 
architects assisted Indian and Moghul skill. 
Their names have passed into oblivion. "The 
bubble reputation" nowhere bursts into thin air 
more quickly than in architecture. Few care for 
the name of the architect of a noble building. 
We gaze admiringly upon his handiwork: we are 
not inerested to know whose subtle brain and deft 
hand created it from gross materials ; who 
breathed on stone and metal, and, lo, they re- 
solved themselves into surpassing beauty. The 
created thing outlives the creator. His memory 
is writ in water. 

THE TAJ MAHAIy 

Father Hennepin, when he burst into the wilder- 



INDIA 171 

ness, and saw before him the wonders of Niagara 
Falls, exclaimed: "There is but one Niagara." 
So there is but one Taj Mahal. It is so super- 
latively beautiful that perhaps it would not be 
right for the earth to have even its duplicate. 
Agra has the architectural wonder of the world. 
"The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
the solemn temples" of other lands are pale be- 
side its ineffable loveliness. 

A tender sentiment, a husband's love for his 
wife: Shahjahan's love for his Persian wife, 
Mumtaz, was the motive that led to this fairy 
creation on the banks of the Jumna. Can it be 
that this exquisite memorial was the work of the 
human hand: that the breathless marble was ever 
imbedded under mold and dirt; that the jewels 
and precious stones that are inlaid on the mau- 
soleums of the emperor and empress and on walls 
and floors must have been mined and worked into 
flowing shapes by the human hand? The 
stranger, gazing on this faultless dream of 
beauty, wonders if the whole is not a mirage, an 
exhalation of light, crystallized from sunbeam and 
cloud-land, rather than something of the earth, 
earthy. Not only the Taj itself, but also its 
scenic setting, are gloriously harmonious. It is 
on a raised platform of marble; guarded by four 
graceful minarets ; flanked on the rear by the 
whispering Jumna; on the sides by tessellated 
parks, on which semi-tropical trees flutter in the 
wind and furnish homes for singing birds. En- 



172 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

tering the park through a massive lodge, the path 
to the Taj is over a plane of glittering marble, 
divided into sections by artificial streams, whose 
jettying fountains cool the air with their spray, 
and in whose bosom the dome and fa9ade of the 
Taj are reflected. Thus almost every element of 
beauty seems to contribute its gift. 

The Taj is always beautiful ; whether, when the 
soft moonlight melts it into silvery filaments or 
when the rising sun strikes it with shafts of light, 
or when the garish day flushes its tower and 
minarets with exultant color. It stands every 
test of view, every angle of vision; every vista 
mirrors itself in a wealth of charm. The panels 
are inlaid with precious stones made into the 
form of flowers and leaves. The ornamentation 
is delicate. The tombs of Shahjahan and Mum- 
taz are under the dome, in the crypt, enclosed by 
a trellis-work screen of grilled white marble. 
On the upper floor, also under the dome, there 
are replicas of the tombs. The dim light, the 
hush, the sense of mystery, the compelling soft- 
ness of every eff'ect, throw around this noblest 
of tombs a delicacy of appeal which no other 
structure possesses. Gateways of red sandstone 
are worthy pendants to the noble building. It 
should be said that the tomb measures 186 feet 
on each side; the central dome has a height of 
187 feet; the finial pinnacles are the only metal 
products used in the Taj. All else is of pure 
marble. No machinery was used in its con- 



INDIA 173 

struction. All was done by the human hand. 
Alas for mortal inconsistencies. The glorious 
Taj was built by cruelly enforced labor. Thou- 
sands of coolies toiled unrequited for more than 
twenty years. It was cemented by tears, blood, 
agony and death. Moreover, the fair Mumtaz 
was only "the favorite wife," for, like all the 
Moghul Emperors, Shahjahan had his harem 
of polygamous wives. In his old age he was 
dethroned by his son, Aurungzebe, and confined 
as a prisoner in the fort. In his dying hours he 
asked to be taken to a room which commands a 
view of the Taj ; and his last, lingering gaze was 
upon his splendid tomb by which his memory is 
perpetuated. 



Agra has other fine buildings besides the Taj. 
The Pearl Mosque in the fort was built by Shah- 
jahan, and is lined throughout with marble. 
Some of the courts and audience-halls are of ele- 
gant finish. There are sumptuous apartments 
once used by the women of the royal household. 
Once there was a system of artificial cascades, 
flowing streams, marble bathrooms, halls whose 
walls were lined with mirrors ; palaces of sand- 
stone ; secret treasure-chambers ; vast cisterns for 
the storage of water. Everything that unbridled 
power and royal whim could imagine, was found 
here. Now all is silent. The vast fort, with all 
its gorgeous mosques and superb apartments, is 



174 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

maintained by the government, virtually as a 
museum. 

The monumental tomb of Akbar the Great is 
at Sikandarah, about five miles from Agra. An- 
other splendid tomb is that of I'timad-ud-daulah, 
the Persian father of Mumtaz, in whose memory 
the Taj was built ; it is located beyond the Jumna 
river. 



Another memorial of Moghul profligacy is the 
once royal but now deserted city of Fatehpur- 
Sikri, a few miles out from Agra. Vast ruins 
mark the spot where Akbar ordained that a new 
capital should be built. The great fort and im- 
mense buildings must have cost a vast outlay 
of money. Some of the tombs and mosques are 
fine types of Oriental art. Perhaps the most 
sacred memorial is the tomb of Shaikh Salim, a 
saint, to whose honor the city was dedicated. 
Imperial Akbar built the gorgeous array of 
buildings and constructed a fiat city. All was 
vain ; the expenditure was waste. The site was 
found to be unsanitary ; the water supply was de- 
ficient. In a few years it was abandoned. It 
stands as a monument of misplaced effort and 
limitless profligacy of public revenue. 

DELHI 

Delhi, for many years the proud capital of the 
Moghul Empire, soon to be the capital of Brit- 



INDIA 175 

ish India, a few weeks ago the scene of the mag- 
nificent Durbar, and all the royal pageant attend- 
ing the coronation of King George as Emperor 
of India, is rich in august history and emblems 
of Oriental art. Here some of the most artistic 
products of India are made ; here the patient In- 
dian creates beautiful forms of handiwork: — 
jewelry, silverware, embroidery, lace work, ivory 
and wood-carvings, gold traceries and metal 
products. 

The history of Delhi is tragic, indeed. Its lo- 
cation exposed it to the wild fury of Tartar and 
Persian invaders. It has been captured, looted 
and destroyed over and over again. Seven suc- 
cessive Delhis have been built, most of them only 
to be blotted out. Now a new Delhi is to arise, 
embellished by modern art, protected by scientific 
sanitation. Millions of money are to be ex- 
pended on the fields which have again and again 
been soaked with human gore. 

Probably the world has known no pageant 
equal to that of the recent Durbar. No Moghul 
conqueror, no voluptuous rajah, ever was the cen- 
ter of such a magnificent demonstration as that 
which welcomed modest King George and Queen 
Mary. Few of the temporary memorials were 
standing when we visited the city. 

The city now has about 233,000 inhabitants. 
It abounds in relics of the past grandeur of the 
Moghul power, and many others connected with 
the tumultuous horrors of the Mutiny in 1857. 



176 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

Extensive ruins surround the modern city ; among 
them 75 unknown tombs of men whose memory 
has faded into oblivion. The circumvallating 
forts are immense. The wealth of Delhi excited 
the cupidity, not only of Moghuls and Persians, 
but that of native tribes. Incredible plunder 
was gathered by the invaders. The wonderful 
Peacock Throne, one of the costliest emblems of 
royalty ever known, was carried into Persia after 
the capture of the city by Nadir. Some of the 
halls in the court, magnificent in architectural 
adornment, have been the scene of terrible trage- 
dies. The graceful designs, exquisite marbles, 
rich jewels, scented bath-rooms, purling foun- 
tains, all the accessories of Oriental magnificence 
and unlimited pomp, have not extruded the eter- 
nal note of sadness. As the stranger wanders 
through the silent halls and echoing corridors, 
and gazes upon the monuments built by arrogant 
despots, and hears the tales of romance and 
tragedy which haunt the royal apartments, he 
feels that a vast, unwritten history is unrolled 
before his eyes, upon which are engraved a men- 
tal picture of much that is glorious and ignoble 
in past Indian life. 

No description will be attempted by the writer, 
no list catalogued of the historical monuments 
in Delhi. Walls, bastions, moats, forts, domes, 
gateways, arches, columns, audience halls, foun- 
tains, tombs, palaces, statues, embankments, grot- 
toes, enclosures, towers, minarets, all these and 



INDIA 177 

many more memorials of the ancient grandeur of 
Delhi and the Moghul dynasty, reel before the 
stranger's eyes. He hears the tales of the 
guides, he admires, wonders ; he is fascinated and 
spell-bound; then the memory is surcharged; all 
is confusion. Scene repeats scene ; history treads 
on the heel of history. The works of Akbar, 
Jahinger and Shahjahan, with all their riot of 
splendor and garniture, reveal the same design ; 
the Oriental sublimity of art, mingled with traces 
of Greek and Latin influence. Names unknown 
to the Western races rise from the mists of the 
past ; stately warriors and fair dames seem to 
leap from their graves. A ghostly procession 
of conquerors and victims passes before the mind's 
eye. The stranger finds himself in a world, old 
indeed, but new to him ; a world of dreams and un- 
realities ; a wonderland of mystery. Then he 
thinks that most of those actors have lived, and 
almost all these memorials were constructed since 
the discovery of America. 

One of the most notable monuments is the Kutab 
Minar, a tower of victory, a few miles out from 
Delhi ; a stone shaft 238 feet high ; a remarkable 
work of art. Near this tower are tombs and 
mosques and temples ; some of them graced with 
stone carvings of exceeding beauty. The mau- 
soleum of the Emperor Humayun, near Delhi, is 
upon the plan afterwards adopted in the building 
of the Taj Mahal at Agra. 



178 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

THE SOCIAL LIFE 

Nothing, however, is more interesting in an 
Indian city than its social life. All works of art 
have their educative value ; they show what the 
brain and hand of man can do, in visualizing the 
sense of beauty, in religious aspirations and in 
public works. But the life of the people is the 
human document which the stranger must read 
if he wishes to carry away abiding impressions. 
The very heart of the Orient is unveiled in the 
native quarters of a great city. Here is the 
panorama of real life. 

Delhi is mostly Mohammedan ; yet there is a 
large Hindu contingent. The religions are 
sharply antagonistic. Except in business con- 
cerns, there is little fraternizing of the native 
Hindus with the descendants of the Mohammedan 
conquerors. An educated Christian Hindu told 
me that in five minutes a riot could be excited in 
Delhi, by the Mohammedans killing a cow, or by 
the Hindus admitting a hog into a mosque. The 
Hindu regards the cow as the image of divine 
maternity: to kill one is sacrilege. The Moham- 
medan regards a hog as detestable: to eat pork 
is an offense to his religion. 

The great mosque, Jumma Mas j id, in Delhi is 
one of the largest in India. Friday is the holy 
day for Mohammedans. As we were in Delhi on 
that day, we went to the mosque at noon, when 
the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer. Throngs 



INDIA 179 

of men poured into the vast court of the mosque, 
undoubtedly from five to six thousand. A few 
veiled women knelt at a distance. With tur- 
baned heads and many-colored tunics, the wor- 
shipers advanced to the pool of sacred water, 
laved their hands and feet ; then knelt upon the 
stone pavement, and, as the priest shrieked out 
the prayer, bowed and bowed to the floor, in rapt 
adoration. When the women knelt their forms 
were entirely concealed in their robes, which they 
drew over them. At the times of the Mohamme- 
dan fasts, their days of purification, 25,000 wor- 
shipers may be seen here. 

We remained through the short service, walked 
down the long stone steps into a public square. 
Now came another kind of view. Beggars and 
outcasts importuned for alms ; itinerant peddlers 
pestered us to buy their trifles. Nautch danc- 
ing-girls, bedecked with tawdry jewels, accom- 
panied by a tom-tom player, performed their an- 
tics. In a moment, the hush of worship was 
changed to the bedlam of an Oriental street, with 
its squalor and poverty. The contrast was 
startling. 

AMRITSAR AND LAHORE 

At Delhi we left the beaten track of tourists 
and passed further north in the Punjab, 325 
miles, to the cities of Amritsar and Lahore, The 
scenery was disappointing. This part of the 
Punjab is a level plain. 



180 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

In the Punjab we were introduced to the Sikh 
civilization; that hardy race which furnishes so 
many soldiers and policemen to the Indian serv- 
ice. Amritsar is the religious capital of the 
Sikhs. Its staple industry is the manufacture of 
Kashmir shawls from the wool of the shaggy 
goat of North India. In the warm season, when 
the snow and ice have melted in the mountain 
passes, caravans of merchants defile into the cities 
of the Punjab, from Kashmir, Afghanistan, Bok- 
hara, Turkestan, Persia, Nepaul and other in- 
terior regions. 

The architectural attraction in Amritsar is 
the Darbar of Sahib, or Golden Temple of the 
Sikhs. With slippered feet we were shown 
through the sacred precincts. The Sikh reli- 
gion is new, about 400 years old; its ritual is 
peculiar. The temples are richly ornamented. 
Some of the chapels no non-Sikh is allowed to 
enter. A priest reads or chants from the sa- 
cred book, the Granth, while pilgrims march 
around him, throw ojfFerings of money or flowers ; 
then sit down and join in the chant, to the ac- 
companiment of some stringed instruments. Ad- 
mission to the faith is by baptism. In the lower 
court is a large tank of slimy water in which 
worshipers perform their ablutions. It is difficult 
to understand the Sikh religion or how far it 
varies from other Indian faiths. It is a re- 
formed branch of Hinduism, founded by one 
Nanak Sahib. It denounces idolatry and has 



INDIA 181 

no castes. It has about 2,200,000 adherents. 

Lahore is the capital of the Punjab; a military 
station of much importance and the seat of nu- 
merous institutions of learning. Its commercial 
importance has declined since the days of the 
Moghul power. It has a very interesting mu- 
seum of native arts and historic curios. We 
made the usual round of mosques and tombs and 
visited Forman College. 

Lahore is associated with the youthful days 
of Rudyard Kipling; he was educated at the gov- 
ernment college. We saw the big cannon in front 
of the museum which figures in the opening chap- 
ter of his story "Kim." 

Nowhere in India have we seen native quarters 
more characteristic of the Orient than in Amrit- 
sar and Lahore. The houses are somewhat more 
substantial than in the Ganges Valley, by reason 
of the cold winters; but the streets are just as 
narrow and squalid. Human life sways through 
them. The little booths present all kinds of Ori- 
ental wares. Fountains of water are the public 
bathing places. Dingy temples with hideous 
idols open from the streets at frequent intervals. 
Asses, loaded with panniers, snarling camels, 
coolies bearing every kind of burden, muffled 
women, naked children, shouting peddlers, jostle 
each other in moving masses. Bridal parties, 
tricked in the smartest colors, march, sometimes 
with bands of musicians, sometimes with a chorus 
of singing girls. Funeral processions appear 



182 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

frequently, the body of the dead one carried on 
men's shoulders, on the way to the burning ghat. 
Often the corpse is covered with pink muslin or 
silk. No outward manifestation of grief seems 
to move the conclave. It is sometimes difficult to 
distinguish between a wedding and funeral pro- 
cession. Above all, are the street-cries, the 
hurly-burly. Women are cooking on the side- 
walks ; men smoking and trading ; children play- 
ing; all is a cloud of shifting humanity, restless 
as the sea, light as the air. Surely, India is the 
land of the open. Secretive by nature, sly and 
uncommunicative, the Indian seems to know no so- 
cial privacies. 



XVI 

INDIA 

(Continued) 

Wandering between two worlds, — one dead, — • 
The other powerless to be born. 

Matthew Arnold. 

CENTRAL PROVINCES 

The most northerly point of our Indian wan- 
derings was reached in the Punjab. Lahore, the 
capital, situated in an arid plain, is one of the 
hottest places in India in the summer. The heat 
is said to be less endurable than in the lowland 
provinces. The English officials are developing 
immense irrigation projects in the Punjab and 
Sinde. By this method large tracts of land are 
reclaimed for cultivation. As we have traveled 
over India, we have observed how imperative is 
the need of irrigation on a vast scale. India is 
essentially an agricultural country. Three- 
fourths of the inhabitants live in villages and de- 
pend upon the produce of the land for a liveli- 
hood. There is not enough food raised. Peri- 
odical famines have wasted the lives of millions 
of people. There is no way in which these can 
be avoided except through irrigation. Wages 

are so low that most of the peasants lead a hand- 
183 



184 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

to-mouth existence. The failure of one harvest 
means death to many thousands. The Punjab 
and Sinde have been the scenes of terrible fam- 
ines. Irrigation has greatly aided these prov- 
inces. 

After our second visit in Delhi we turned to 
the southward and entered the native province of 
Rajputana; one of the most famous in Indian 
history. It is still governed by native raj ahs ; 
it is not organically incorporated into British 
India. Externally the contour of Rajputana is 
not attractive. Dry plains alternate with lime- 
stone hills ; large tracts of land are incapable of 
cultivation. The Rajput villages are collections 
of mud hovels. All the land of the province is 
owned by the rajahs. The people in the outly- 
ing communities are miserably poor. Yet, the 
Rajputs are among the proudest, fiercest, most 
warlike and tenacious of all the Indians. Their 
native costumes are brilliant. The Rajput 
women are loaded with jewelry. They can be 
distinguished from other natives, when seen in 
the large cities outside of their province, by their 
smart colors and excessive ornamentation. As 
the train runs through the wild jungle — bare ex- 
cept for trees and scrubby brush — an occasional 
stone is seen under the pipal, a sacred tree in 
Hinduism. As this tree is of soft pith, it is 
useless economically, and has been devoted to the 
gods. Tree and river worship, as well as animal 



INDIA 185 

worship, is a part of the ancient faith of the peo- 
ple. 

Jaipur, or Jeypore, is the capital of the prov- 
ince of Rajputana. It is a city quite after the 
modern type, being only about 200 years old. 
It is laid out with wide streets, has a system of 
parks and also one of the finest museums in In- 
dia. An Italian architect assisted in developing 
the city ; so there is a good deal of that uniform- 
ity in architecture which is observable in the large 
cities of continental Europe. Almost all the 
buildings are covered with stucco, painted pink. 
The effect is quite pleasing to the eye. 

The street life of Jaipur is very brilliant. 
Nothing that we have seen in India equals it. 
Pompous elephants, gaily caparisoned, parade- 
through the streets. It is a part of the court 
etiquette that every rajah shall keep at least 
one elephant. The animal, fat and bedizened, 
fares beter than the half-starved natives. 

One-seventh of the territory in Jaipur is used 
for the Maharajah's palace and grounds. Here 
is true Oriental grandeur, in startling contrast 
with the poverty of his subjects. The sweating 
ryot (farm laborer) toils under the blistering sun 
from daylight until darkness and receives for his 
exhausting labor perhaps four or five cents a day 
— no more. Even a part of this beggarly pit- 
tance goes for taxes to maintain the vulgar os- 
tentation of the rajahs. The palace at Jaipur 
is a type of hundreds that may be found in the 



186 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

East — a circle of gaudy houses, often adorned 
with doors of bronze or silver; private and pub- 
lic audience halls ; a dancing room ; a crowd of 
slatternly retainers ; a temple where his highness 
may worship ; a banquet hall ; a zenana, or harem, 
for his fifty or more concubines ; a menagerie of 
animals. The peacock strutted over the lawns ; 
the agile mongoose (weasel) shied at our ap- 
proach into the coverts. The frisky monkey was 
everywhere. There was a large stud of horses. 
One pond was devoted to alligators. Pheasants 
decorated the woods. All was a mass of tawdry 
profusion. Yet, the Maharajah has good points. 
He has endowed the noble museum and has done 
something for popular education. 

HINDU WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS 

His caste imposes upon him certain obligations 
which are expensive. Recently his mother died ; 
a gorgeous funeral followed. It was the privi- 
lege of any Brahman of the Maharajah's caste to 
eat a meal at his expense. We were told that he 
fed at least 1,000,000 guests. Some honors come 
high. 

Weddings and funerals in India exhaust large 
sums of money. The late winter is the season of 
weddings. At the railroad stations and on the 
streets, we have seen many nuptial parties. 
Some of the brides were mere girls ; all decked 
in tinsel of the gaudiest colors, generally with 
their faces veiled. None of them looked to be 



INDIA 187 

happy. Marriages are always arranged by the 
parents. A daughter must accept the husband 
whom her father selects. There is no courtship. 
An English resident told of attending the wed- 
ding of a girl-child of five to a polygamous Brah- 
man priest of seventy years. If the husband dies 
before co-habitation, the girl is considered dis- 
graced ; her hair is cut ; she is allowed but one or 
two slender meals a day ; cannot re-marry ; be- 
comes virtually the slave of the mother-in-law. 
Moreover, marriage generally does not mean a 
separate domicile for the couple. The bride goes 
to her husband's home, is incorporated into the 
family group, which consists often of a consider- 
able number of families ; the household is ruled 
by the husband's mother. 

A strong protest is rising against these abuses, 
especially that of girl-widowhood. In the Brit- 
ish Indian provinces legislation has been enacted 
which releases the child-widow from the cruel in- 
justice to which the ancient customs of the land 
subject her. 

One day we happened to see a strange affair 
in the streets of Jaipur. The street was wide. 
We observed that, for a considerable space, half 
of it had been fenced in. Banners were flying 
and music sounding. Later, we passed the place 
again, looked into the enclosure, and saw a Hindu 
wedding feast. There were no seats. A great 
crowd of guests squatted upon the ground. 



188 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

There was a flash of iridescent colors. Many of 
the women were sumptuously attired. Serv- 
ants were passing around food and drinks. 
It is to be presumed that all were of one caste. 
The guests, who kept coming and going, must 
have numbered thousands. The festivities were 
prolonged for hours. All was in the open air. 
The burning sun was beating upon the heads of 
the great crowd. We were told that such enter- 
tainments are very common in India. The hosts 
often incur ruinous debts thereby, which are 
sometimes left as an uncomfortable burden to 
their descendants. 



Our landlord at Jaipur was an intelligent 
Hindu of the reforming class. Few Hindus are 
hotel-keepers or even waiters. This is owing to 
their aversion to eating or handling flesh food. 
No true Hindu ever eats meat ; to do so is against 
the cardinal precepts of his religion. Most of 
the table waiters are Christians or Mohamme- 
dans. The landlord talked freely of the abuses 
which have crept into the Hindu faith. He said 
he saw signs of great changes in the near future. 
He favors radical reforms, yet still remains in 
his ancestral religion ; wears the turban and 
garb. He believes the reform can come from 
within. He claims that Hinduism is, in its es- 
sence, as pure as Christianity; that its perver- 
sions are social and political. His conversation 



INDIA 189 

was entertaining. He has a keen mind, like many 
of the Brahmans. 

AJMIR AND ABU-ROAD 

From Jaipur we moved on to Ajmir, also in 
Rajputana. Some notion of the slowness of rail- 
way day-service in India may be inferred from the 
fact that we were more than five hours in cov- 
ering a distance of about forty miles. The in- 
tervening country is ashy, poor, dry, and thinly 
inhabited. Ajmir is hilly and is garrisoned by 
English troops. It has an ancient and sharply 
defined Orientalism. The Mohammedan mosque 
is one of the finest which we have seen in India. 
In the yard was a huge iron vat, set upon a fur- 
nace, in which rice is boiled every day and dis- 
tributed to the poor. The mosque has some 
elaborate tombs in which members of the Moghul 
dynasty are buried. At sunset hour, the mosque 
was filled with devout Moslems, saying their 
prayers and bowing towards Mecca. 

Next came a delightful rest of four days, as 
the STuests of Rev. and Mrs. Arnold Thomas, at 
Abu-Road. We had had as fellow-travelers for 
several weeks our good English friends, Mr. and 
Mrs. Samuel Dugdale, of Luddenden, Yorkshire, 
the latter of whom is aunt of Mr. Thomas. We 
were graciously admitted to the family circle as 
guests, and thus had our first glimpse of English 
home-life in India. 

Abu-Road is a residential town for railroad 



190 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

officials and employes. The houses are con- 
structed after the bungalow fashion. 

HINDU SERVANTS 

In India, all domestic service is done by men. 
No native Hindu woman is employed. The work 
is highly specialized. Generally, in the simplest 
establishments four servants are required: a cook, 
a water-boy, a sweeper, a waiter ; generally also 
a dhobie, or laundry-boy. No Western trades- 
unionism is more rigorous than the castes to which 
the servants belong. To break one's caste is in- 
famous. If the water-boy, who brings water 
from a common fountain for several families, 
should act as waiter, he loses his caste. The dis- 
charging of a servant is sometimes attended with 
difficulty ; members of his caste do not dare to as- 
sume his place. Wages are very low, hardly 
amounting to $3 a month; and the servants find 
themselves with food. 

THE JAIN TEMPLE AT MOUNT ABU 

Mount Abu, — 'One of the hill-resorts of Central 
India, — is distant about seventeen miles from 
Abu-Road. It is reached over a climbing high- 
way. We took the journey in tongas, native 
two-horse vehicles ; changing horses four times en 
route. Mount Abu is a summer resort and play- 
ground; but its chief fame comes from the Jain 
temple, or temples, called the Dilwara. They 
are considered among the best in India, especially 



INDIA 191 

in stone-carvings. Young priests acted as our 
guides. There was a multiplicity of statues of 
the Saint Parswanatha, to whom the sacred edi- 
fice is dedicated. Each statue is in a niche by 
itself; all have glass eyes. The myth runs that 
the one most sacred of all the statues arose out 
of the ground into the position where it now is. 
A guide solemnly assured us that this statue had 
eyesight ; he seemed to be disturbed when we ex- 
pressed our doubt of this amazing statement. 

Temples and mosques are to India what cathe- 
drals, picture-galleries and museums are to Eu- 
ropean cities. Their monotonous character, 
after a time, wearies the tourist. 

AHMADABAD 

Our next stay was at the large city of Ahmada- 
bad, a center of cotton manufacturing. It 
proved to be the dustiest, dirtiest, most uncom- 
fortable and hottest city that we had seen in 
India. It is intensely Oriental. The architec- 
tural attractions are several mosques, some of 
which have great renown. One has some richly 
carved stone windows. In another, we saw three 
slabs, sacred to Mahomet, Jesus and Mary, each. 
That anyone can survive the dirt of Ahmadabad 
is almost a wonder. In summer the heat must 
be intolerable. All the usual scenes of primitive 
Oriental life are repeated in its streets. 



192 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

BOMBAY 

A night's ride and we reached Bombay, which 
is on the western coast of India, by far the finest 
city in the entire peninsula. Although hot and 
malarious, its climate is tempered by the sea- 
winds. Next to Calcutta, it is the largest city in 
India, and has immense business interests in com- 
merce and manufacturing. Its population is 
about 800,000. In the number of chimneys of 
cotton mills it resembles one of the manufactur- 
ing centers of Lancashire or New England. We 
were told that only two of the mills are owned 
by Englishmen. Jains, Hindus or Parsees, and 
the wealthy Hebrew family, the Sassoons, own 
the rest. Bombay has all the indicia of a 
wealthy city, and is the home of many million- 
aires. Elegant homes adorn the esplanade and 
Malabar Hill. The Victoria railroad station is 
one of which any city might be proud. There 
are universities, hospitals, institutions for the 
blind, orphanages, and a long list of public build- 
ings, and a large zoological collection at Victoria 
Gardens. 

THE PARSEES 

Prominent in the civic and commercial life of 
Bombay are the Parsees, the last remnant of the 
Zoroastrians or Persian fire-worshipers. When 
Persia was converted to the Mohammedan faith 
and fire-worship was forbidden, an immigration 



INDIA 193 

of Persians (Parsees) to India followed. They 
were tolerated in Bombay, and the present Par- 
sees are their descendants. The sacred fire 
brought from the temples of the sun-god in Per- 
sia has never been allowed to be extinguished. It 
has been carried from temple to temple. No one 
but a Parsee is allowed to see it. 

There are only about 100,000 Parsees in In- 
dia, but their wealth, ability, business keenness 
and public spirit have given them great influence. 
They are a handsome race ; monogamous ; their 
women are unveiled ; they are enthusiasts in edu- 
cation. They assimilate better with the Euro- 
peans than any other Indian race. They are 
manufacturers, traders, bankers, shippers ; ap- 
parently few of them are farmers or mechanics. 

The Parsee women have a peculiarly engag- 
ing manner of dress ; a silken shawl, called a 
sarei, is drawn over the back of the head, and ar- 
ranged into an outer flowing robe. 

The Parsees are proud of the charitableness 
of their wealthy men. Many splendid institu- 
tions in Bombay are their gift. Their million- 
aires live in sumptuous homes. As they inter- 
marry and allow no conversions into their sect, 
their numbers hardly hold their own. Withal, 
they are a very interesting race: a branch of the 
West Asian Aryan stock transplanted to India. 

One of the places which every tourist in Bom- 
bay visits is the Parsee Cemetery and Towers of 



194 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

Silence. The sect has never abandoned its an- 
cestral method of disposing of the dead. There 
are five Towers of Silence in the Parsee Ceme- 
tery, surrounded by a finely-kept park. As it is 
desecration for any hand but that of a Parsee 
to touch a Parsee corpse, two of the towers are 
for those of the faith who die as suicides or in 
hospitals : for the bodies of such have been prob- 
ably touched by the profane hands of nurses or 
officials. The top of the towers is open and cir- 
cular, with a passage in the center. The bear- 
ers bring the corpse to the cemetery on their 
shoulders, — we saw two so brought: a registra- 
tion is made of the name and other facts ; then 
the bearers carry it to the top of the tower and 
deposit it, if of an adult, on the upper tier of the 
circular platform. The intermediate tier is for 
boys ; the lower for girls. Then the vultures, 
scenting the carrion, begin to hover. We saw 
swarms of the ugly birds perching on the towers 
and trees. The bearers withdraw; the vultures 
feast upon the flesh ; in about two hours the body 
is picked clean; only the osseous skeleton is left. 
This remains for a few days in the tower ; then 
is dropped through the opening to a channel of 
water and is disintegrated. So strict are the 
Parsees of their birthright that an English wife 
of a Parsee, who desired to have her body thus 
disposed of, was refused. If a Parsee dies in a 
foreign land, where there is no Tower of Silence, 
the rule is relaxed and burial is permitted. 



INDIA 195 

This ancient custom is based upon the worship 
of the elements. The Parsee worships fire, water 
and the earth. He believes that burial or cre- 
mation of a corpse defiles one of those elements. 

THE CAVES OF ELEPHANTA 

The Island of Elephanta, sacred in Hindu 
mythology, lies in the harbor of Bombay, about 
seven and one-half miles distant. A scrawny 
island, with only 300 inhabitants, it is famous for 
its caves, which nearly a thousand years ago were 
converted into temples. There are four of them, 
but only one of considerable size. These cave- 
temples exhibit the primitive idolatry of the Hin- 
dus ; dedicated to Siva, the god of destruction 
and reproduction. Many of the figures have 
been mutilated, either by the Portuguese or Mo- 
hammedans, in days of religious turbulency. 
Enough remains, however, to enable one to see 
how riotous the Hindu imagination is ; and how 
similar many of the concepts are to Greek, Egyp- 
tian, Assyrian and Roman mythology. Here we 
have the three-headed Brahma, the creator; the 
marriage of Siva ; another statue of Siva danc- 
ing ; the monkey, eagle, snake and elephant gods ; 
all manifestations of Plindu divinities. Much of 
the work has considerable artistic merit. Angels 
and creatures, half human, half animal, are 
crowded around the colossal statues of the gods. 
In each cave, as in all temples to Siva, the holy 
of hohes is the room of the lingam, a low, oval 



196 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

stone column. Here sterile women come and pray 
for offspring: and if their prayers are granted, 
crown the figure with wreaths of flowers. As the 
English government now has control of the cave- 
temples, which they have restored at considerable 
expense, high-caste Brahmans regard them as 
desecrated. The worshipers are now of the lower 
castes. 



XVII 

INDIA 

(Continued) 

Everything is in a state of metamorphosis. Thou 
thyself art in everlasting change and in corruption to 
correspond: so is the whole universe. 

Marcus Aurelius. 

THE DEC CAN 

The railroad ride from Bombay to Madras was 
a trying experience. We were two nights and 
one day on the Grand Indian Peninsular Railway. 
For a part of the ride, the road-bed is poor and 
the cars joggled and jumped so that sleep was 
well-nigh an impossibility. Few first-class com- 
partments are provided. The natives travel in 
immense numbers ; most of them third class. 
Their dusky faces peer through the side openings 
from the interiors of the carriages into which 
they are packed like kippered herrings. 

Even in visiting friends in India, the visitor 

takes his own servant and bedding. These the 

host is not supposed to provide. As domestic 

service is so minutely specialized, each servant 

disdaining to do anything out of his immediate 

sphere of work, a personal servant is required. 

The principal advantage of a servant is in the 
197 



198 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

care of luggage. The moment in travel a tour- 
ist dismounts from the train, a swarm of coolies 
descends upon him, eager to carry his luggage 
to the hotel. As few of the coolies can talk Eng- 
lish, a servant is a great aid in dealing with them. 
Another unusual feature in Indian travel, espe- 
cially in Central and Southern India, is provision 
for travelers at the railroad stations. Rooms can 
be had on the second floor, with bath, and meals 
can be ordered in the cafes which the companies 
maintain. Such accommodations are generally 
good, much better than can be had at many of the 
hotels. 

A considerable part of the ride to Madras was 
through the large province of Hyderabad. We 
made no stop, as this region has been seriously 
affected by the plague. Hyderabad includes a 
large part of South Central India. One of its 
districts is Golconda — what a sweetly sounding 
word — which is famous for its output of precious 
stones, especially diamonds. 

I do not know how many diamonds flash in the 
mines of Golconda, but we saw none of them. 
Rough hills, parched plains, dry river-beds, vil- 
lages of mud huts, were the most that we saw of 
it from the car window. The hasty glimpse 
which we caught of the land to which some one 
gave such a charming name rather dimmed my 
childish vision of a land sparkling with jewels. 



INDIA 199 

MADRAS 

Madras, the third city of India in population, 
extends nine miles along the Bay of Bengal. We 
had crossed the peninsula and were again on its 
eastern rim, called the Carnatic, It is an old 
city. The East India Company made its first 
settlement here. The province of Madras is of 
great importance. An esplanade along the sea- 
line is a fine speedway. Here is a long range of 
bathing beaches ; the English residents live in 
bungalows in the suburbs. 

Travel in the East is peculiar. The impres- 
sion made on the mind of a tourist by palaces, tem- 
ples, mosques and forts is fleeting; but that made 
by the indescribable outdoor life in an Oriental 
city is enduring. There is nothing in the street- 
life of an American or European metropolis com- 
parable with it. It needs a special environment 
of climate and custom, which the East furnishes. 
Secret in his inner life, the Oriental does not, 
like lago, "wear his heart upon his sleeve for 
daws to peck at." His gregariousness, castes, 
immobility and standardized regime of living open 
his character to the eyes of the tourist. The nar- 
row, dingy streets are a kaleidoscopic medley of 
costumes. Here the tourist sees the public bath- 
ing, the primitive methods of mechanical work, 
the greedy hucksters, the bubble of chatter, the 
clash of camels, elephants, asses and horses, the 
carriers, using head, hands, feet, and even the 



200 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

mouth in transporting their burdens ; the bullock 
carts ; the goods piled on platforms ; the sweat, 
dust, reek, filth, grime and soot ; the near-by tem- 
ples and mosques ; the processions with deafening 
noise ; bridal and funeral parties ; bevies of 
priests ; veiled women, with white robes encircling 
the head and body, two perforations before the 
eyes being the only method of admitting a vision 
of the outward world ; naked children ; women 
combing each other's hair; devotees posturing 
before the altars or decorating idols ; the sacred 
cow roaming where she pleases, a chartered lib- 
ertine of religion; greasy "holy men,'^ with their 
bodies smeared with the oil of sandal-wood; cow- 
dung plastered on walls ; men and women cooking 
in the open air; the foreheads of Hindus dotted 
with a spot of color or splashed with a streak, to 
show their caste or to denote their worship of 
Vishnu or Siva or Kjali; the haughty Brahman 
wearing the sacred cord; the cowering pariah or 
outcast ; the importunate beggar or pestiferous 
peddler ; the fortune-teller, the letter-writer, the 
juggler, the snake-charmer. All these and many 
more are the ingredients of Indian street-life. 
Of course, they do not concur always on one 
street; but most of them become exceedingly fa- 
miliar. They are every-day occurrences in all 
the large cities. 

It is with much sacrifice that a Hindu becomes 
a Christian. He or she immediately loses caste. 



INDIA 201 

The marriage of a Christian with a Hindu is out 
of the question. Even a civil marriage is impos- 
sible, unless both parties declare that they be- 
long to neither faith. 

The British-Indian government is pledged not 
to interfere with the native religions. This com- 
plete abstention is unfortunate. Even the abo- 
lition of sutteeism, — the burning of a widow on 
her husband's funeral pyre, — was violently op- 
posed by Hindus, even by Hindu women. It is 
believed that if this humane law were repealed, 
the natives would swing back to the hideous cus- 
tom at once. Renunciation has been taught to 
Hindu women for many generations. Indeed, it 
is the controlling principle of womanhood over 
nearly all Asia. The equality of the sexes has 
never been recognized. 

TRICHINOPOLY AND MADURA 

These ancient cities in Southern India have 
great interest. Trichinopoly has a picturesque 
location. It was the theater of bloody battles 
between the English and French. The Fort 
Rock, which was captured by the English, is a 
natural fortification of great strength. 

The main interests, however, both in Trichi- 
nopoly and Madura are the vast temples, which 
have a great place in Hindu worship. That in 
the former city is dedicated to Vishnu, the pre- 
server. As we approached it, we rode through 
a sacred grove, where the trees were marked with 



202 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

V. Crowds of worshipers and pilgrims were go- 
ing to or coming from the temple with the same 
letter painted on their foreheads. 

Here we saw, for the first time, the Juggernaut 
car. It is drawn through the streets on festal 
occasions, surmounted by the idols of Vishnu and 
his wife. It is very heavy. A thousand men 
seize the cable, made from cocoanut fiber, and 
drag it through the streets, while the multitude 
prostrate themselves before it. Formerly devo- 
tees threw themselves under the huge wooden 
wheels, a willing sacrifice to the gods. To be 
crushed under the Juggernaut was meritorious. 
This barbarism British rule has stopped. 

Both the temples of Trichinopoly and of Ma- 
dura are imposing in their architectural struc- 
ture. They are ornamental with tall towers, 
called gopurams, visible from a great distance. 
On these gopurams there are thousands of idols ; 
at the Madura temple, 6000 idols in all. The 
sanctuaries are devoted to the several castes. 
No low-caste Hindu is allowed to enter those 
where the higher castes worship ; but, on two 
weeks of the year, the idols are removed to a 
large sanctuary, which is given up for the time 
being to the low castes. 

Trichinopoly is an irregular city, made up of 
seventeen villages ; it is also a military station. 
The Rock is 273 feet high. The temple of 
Vishnu is named Sri Rangam. It contains a 



INDIA 203 

collection of diamonds and other precious stones, 
of immense value, which have been given as of- 
ferings by votaries. In the court of the temple 
is the Hall of One Thousand Pillars ; not very im- 
pressive. The number of pillars is exaggerated. 

The Great Pagoda or Temple of Shiva at Ma- 
dura is even more elaborate than the Vishnu Tem- 
ple at Trichinopoly. One of its most interesting 
attachments is a gallery of frescoes, on which are 
painted the genesis and development of the 
Hindu myths. Here the stranger can study the 
symbols and poetic fancies out of which the luxu- 
riant mythology has been developed. Nothing 
is too improbable or unscientific to have place 
here. Astounding miracles, gross myths, are pic- 
tured as facts. Credulity is at the base of much 
that is called religion, all over the world, among 
all families of men ; but nowhere is it stamped 
more vividly than in India. 

The Hindu worshiper begins by accepting the 
ancient miracles as historic facts. To doubt, is 
sinful. Then he begins to explain them. For 
instance, a very intelligent Hindu, of the reform- 
ing clan, at Amritsar, told us that the old 
Aryans probably had the telegraph and aero- 
plane, because the legends recited that an army 
from the island of Ceylon came, in one day, to 
the aid of their heroes in North India. Even 
his keen mind had not reached that stage where 
he could dissociate poetical myths from exact 
truth. His position is an exaggeration of faith 



204 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

which leads into a morass of superstition. 
The temple at Madura is richly ornamented. 
Its carvings are among the finest which we have 
seen. Madura was once the scene of more fanat- 
ical worship than that of the present day. Here, 
until stopped by the British government, were 
held, for many years, the "swinging festivals," 
in which fanatics were hoisted into the air and 
swung around a pole by iron hooks, forced into 
their backs. It is said that generally the agony 
was abated by some anodyne, which was injected 
into their bodies before the prongs were inserted. 

At Madura we had our first experience with a 
punkah-wallah. We were lodging in the cham- 
bers of the railroad station. The heat was al- 
most suffocating, and there were no electric fans. 
There was a punkah in each room. The puller, 
the punkah-wallah, was not in sight. Two or 
three times he fell asleep. At once we awoke ; 
the cessation of the waves of air seemed to cre- 
ate a vacuum. We aroused him and he pulled 
and pulled energetically. In the morning, a mid- 
dle-aged man came and bowed before me. I 
found he Avas the punkah-wallah. He pulled all 
night for eight annas, sixteen cents of our money. 

Our tour in India was nearing its end. From 
Madura we took the train for Tuticorin, whence 
we embarked on a steamer and arrived at Co- 
lombo, Ceylon, the following morning. 



INDIA 205 

We had traveled about 5000 miles in India on 
railways, steamers, carriages, tongas and ghar- 
ries, motor-cars and dandies (sedan-chairs), for- 
tunately without misadventure. Our route had 
ranged from the hot plains of Bengal to the 
snowy Himalayas ; through the fetid streets of 
Benares, Ahmadabad and Allahabad to the arid 
Punjab; over deserts and up steep hills. We had 
crossed the Peninsula from sea to sea and gone 
to the extreme south. We had slept in back- 
racking sleeping cars, in two or three most un- 
satisfactory hotels. We had eaten an extraor- 
dinary melange of food. We had inhaled dust, 
stench, smoke and mephitic air. We had entered 
temples, mosques, ruins, forts, shrines, markets, 
bazaars, almost innumerable. It is safe to say 
that we had mingled with millions of Hindus, pil- 
grims, Brahmans and outcasts. Wisely we had 
avoided drinking the native water, even in the 
best hotels. We penalized ourselves with insipid 
mineral waters. Generally ice was not procur- 
able. We also avoided uncooked native vegeta- 
bles. Our party of four escaped serious illness. 
We had heard of several unfortunate tourists, 
whom we had met, succumbing to typhoid or 
malaria and who were taken to hospitals ; prob- 
ably through imprudence in diet. Under our 
helmet hats we withstood the burning heat of 
mid-day. We had plenty of fatigue ; some un- 
avoidable inconveniences, but very much of real 
enjoyment. 



206 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

Did the long tour pay? Yes, a thousand times 
over. India is the mystery of mysteries ; the land 
of insoluble enigmas. The Indians are no more 
of one race than are the natives of Europe. A 
thousand streams of humankind have emptied into 
the ethnic life of the Peninsula. Its complexity 
enables Great Britain to govern its millions. Its 
system of castes assists. These castes, originally 
dividing the people into priests, soldiers and 
farmers or mechanics, were really primitive trades 
unions. They have swollen into so many subi- 
eastes that there are said to be more than 2000 
of them. Religious sanctions impressed the 
castes with a certain solemnity. Gross perver- 
sions resulted. To this day there is a caste of 
thieves. At a house where we were guests, my 
attention was called to a fine-looking "boy" or 
servant. The lady told me that he belonged to 
the thief-caste ; but, so long as he was employed, 
he could be trusted not to steal, and the household 
was immune from robbery by members of his 
caste. 

MONEY-LENDING AND NATIVE ARTS 

A great evil in India is money-lending. The 
lender is called a chetty or bunyah. Exorbitant 
rates are charged. Custom requires that a man 
should assume the debts of his father or grand- 
father. He is thus enslaved for life. Often he 
cannot keep up with the swelling interest. A 
creditor often flogs the debtor if he cannot meet 
the payments due on his debt. 



INDIA 207 

The religious sect of Jains is a strange Indian 
phenomenon. They number only about 1,300,- 
000 in a population of 315,000,000; yet they 
have immense wealth, often gathered from money- 
lending. The men wear a peculiar cap, em- 
bossed with gold or silver on the back. The 
Jains believe that everything, even a stone, has 
life. They will therefore not take life in any 
form. We were told of a rich Jain in Calcutta 
who hires a man to sleep in his bed the first part 
of every night, so that his substitute may at- 
tract the lice and vermin. A Jain priest sweeps 
the path, as he walks, to avoid killing an insect. 

The Jains control much of the cotton manu- 
facturing of India ; also banking establishments. 
Their faces are keen and greedy. They hold 
in their grasp thousands of Indian peasants. 
They look as if they were merciless creditors. 

This system of credit is a terrible curse in In- 
dia. There is no country where wealth has more 
power. The contrast between the helpless pov- 
erty of the peasants and the barbaric opulence 
of rajahs and nizams is painful. The peasant 
is hardly one day away from starvation. Yet, 
with the first flush of a little prosperity, he buys 
jewelry for himself, wife and children. In fact, 
the excessive love of decoration is one of the great 
national evils. In the large cities families of con- 
siderable wealth often live in most ignoble sur- 
roundings. Yet, when occasion arises, they blos- 
som out with expensive jewels and ornaments. 



208 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

There is also a caste of beggars. Probably 
some of the mendicants are really needy; some 
are pretenders. The beggar meets the tourist 
almost everywhere ; whining piteously, he 
stretches out his hands, bows and prostrates him- 
self. It requires quite a hardening of the heart 
to resist his importunities. Little children are 
taught the trick of begging. Often the appeal 
is supplemented by bringing up one afflicted with 
blindness or lameness. The "holy men," of whom 
there is said to be 1,000,000 in India, live by beg- 
gary. 

Such are some of the shadows in Indian life; 
and the list could be indefinitely extended. On 
the other hand, there is much that is beautiful. 
We have not seen a drunken person in India. 
The street crowds have been very orderly. The 
Indians are a courteous race. We have not suf- 
fered one act of discourtesy. Smiles and wel- 
come await the stranger at every temple and mu- 
seum. Moreover, the native arts are wonderful. 
The ivory carvings, wood and metal work, braid- 
ings, carpet weaving, lacquer, silks, laces, em- 
broideries and many other exhibitions of high 
and refined taste, executed with marvelous pa- 
tience and ingenuity, show what latent power 
there is in the composite race. There is a vast 
reserve of ability which by and by will be exer- 
cised on a larger field. A curio shop in Benares 
or Delhi is a veritable museum. Most of the ex- 



INDIA 209 

quisite fabrics and metallic wares are still made 
by hand. To hurry is no part of the Indian 
character. He learns one thing and to do that 
one thing well. Slowly machinery is supplanting 
hand-labor. 

The Indian, like the Japanese, understands 
color effects. His art exhibits a taste, a sense 
of form, often a dignity, which is remarkable. 

The Indian temperament is artistic. From his 
turban to his temple, his eye is quick to adopt 
that color or symbol which most befits the object. 

INDIAN RETEOSPECT 

India is now behind me. The dream of my 
boyhood has been realized. My eye has rested 
upon the fanes, the sacred groves, the stately 
temples and mosques, the teeming cities, the over- 
flowing bazaars, the foaming crowds, the splen- 
did arts, the Taj Mahal, the white-crowned 
Himalayas, the jeweled idols, the pageant of 
color and ritual, of which I read when a child. 

While our tour has been longer and has had 
a wider range than that of most tourists, I knew 
we touched only the hem of the mighty civiliza- 
tion. Of its inner life, its secret temperament, 
its intellectual stirrings, its heart-beats, a 
stranger can learn but little. 

There were some disappointments : but much 
was realized. Some experiences will be dwarfed ; 
others will dilate, if life is spared. Much has 



210 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

been left unseen. A tour of a year would leave 
much unseen. 

India, even under the fresh impressions of this 
hour, looms up in the memory as something 
ghostly and spectral ; almost an unreality : " the 
stuff that dreams are made on." It is unlike any 
other country. It was a civilization when Eu- 
rope was a wilderness and America unknown. 
What has given it its persistency? Perhaps the 
answer a Hindu gave me, when I asked the ques-^ 
tion, may be true: "We Indians know how to 
live, how to accept life. Westerners do not. 
We shall survive all Western nations. Our cli- 
mate is our defense ; English occupation is but 
a bubble in Indian history. It has done some 
harm, much good. Let the English stay as long 
as they wish. The time will come when they will 
be glad to retire. India was not intended for 
Westerners. When they go, the waters will close 
over this short episode in Indian history. We 
shall become ourselves again, — ^but wiser and bet- 
ter because they have been here. India is for the 
Indians." 



XVIII 

CEYLON, THE BEAUTIFUL 

In the afternoon they came unto a land. 
In which it seemed always afternoon, 

Tennyson. 

LEAVING THE ORIENT 

Whether or not a country is interesting to a 
tourist depends, in a great measure, upon the 
spirit with which he approaches it. When we 
landed at Colombo, after a pleasant voyage of 
one night from Tuticorin, on the mainland of In- 
dia, we were rather drugged with sight-seeing. 
For months we had been seeking the beautiful 
and the picturesque. Our sense of curiosity had 
been blurred by an affluence of strange scenes. 
Mountain and valley, hill and plain, temple and 
mosque, city and village, palace and hut, had 
been repeated to us in a hundred forms. It al- 
most seemed that there was nothing new under 
the sun of the Orient for us to see. So, beauti- 
ful as is the island of Ceylon, it excited in us 
only a comparatively languid interest. Java 
had disclosed tropical vegetation on a larger 
scale. The Malayan Peninsula had presented its 
wilderness of untamed jungle. India had over- 
all 



212 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

whelmed the imagination by the millions of its 
people, almost as innumerable as the sands of 
the sea. We had been swept into the vortex of 
its seething cities ; had watched the golden glow 
of its tinted skies ; had been impressed by the tu- 
multuous grandeur of its temple architecture. 
After all this, the gentle charms of Ceylon did 
not make the sensitive appeal which would have 
come if we had reached it earlier in our tour. 

Colombo, the capital of Ceylon, is a large, 
modern city, washed by the dark blue waters of 
the Indian Ocean and swept by sea breezes. It 
is hot, but healthy. Its clean, macadamized 
streets offer excellent privileges for riding. 
There is little in Colombo to interest a tourist. 
It is a port of entry for eastward- and westward- 
bound steamers. They fly into the harbor, which 
is protected by a fine breakwater, nestle there 
for a few hours ; then leap into the vast ocean, 
after giving to their passengers an opportunity 
to tread upon the solid earth, and to realize, 
after long days of sea-travel, that there is such a 
substance as dry land. 

PLANTATION LIFE 

The British Orient furnishes opportunity for a 
livelihood to thousands of young men. Many are 
in the military and civil service of the govern- 
ment. The great development of the rubber in- 
dustry has required the investment of many mil- 



CEYLON, THE BEAUTIFUL 213 

lions of English capital. Most of the managers 
of the plantations are young men. Often they 
live in lonely isolation ; maybe in the jungles of 
the Malayan Peninsula, or in the deeper solitudes 
of Sumatra ; or on one of the smaller islands, 
where there is no social life, and where communi- 
cation with the great world of human activities is 
infrequent. Such is the life of young Americans 
in the Philippines; such is the general aspect of 
all frontier living. We have met scores of young 
men who are thus committed to the wilderness, in 
their most vigorous years. Many of them com- 
plain of the burning tropical heat; of insidious 
malaria ; of the wastage of their incomes on phy- 
sicians and medicines. 

Such is one of the inevitable tolls of industrial 
progress. To re-claim the tropics, to graft the 
economic processes of the West upon the alien 
East, will cost their price, — an awful price, — in 
blood and muscle. Yet all this is necessary. It 
is a working of the law of reciprocity. No man 
liveth to himself alone. Every genuine life is 
vicarious. Service is demanded of all of us. The 
tea which we drink, the rice on our table, the rub- 
ber used in many forms of our economic arts, the 
spices, the fruits, — everything, wrung from the 
soil, the world over, — are human contributions. 
Without the aid of man, the earth would relapse 
into a primeval wilderness. Man's sweat is its 
richest fertilizer. 



214 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

INDUSTRIES, RELIGION AND SCENERY 

The island of Ceylon has an area of something 
more than 25,000 square miles, a little more than 
half that of Java. It is mountainous and has 
much fine scenery. The aboriginal inhabitants are 
the Veddahs ; some of these primitive people are 
still living on the island, black, Avoolly, mostly fish- 
ermen. The Singhalese — so the natives of Cey- 
lon are termed — are a mixture of Indian and other 
Oriental races. Most of them are Buddhists in 
religion. The island has ruins of ancient Buddhis- 
tic temples. Tradition says that Buddha made 
three visits to Ceylon. When the religion which 
he founded was absorbed in India by Hinduism, it 
remained the faith of Ceylon. At Kandy — now a 
m'ountain resort, once the capital of one of the 
Singhalese kingdoms — ^we visited the Maligawa 
Temple, the Temple of the Tooth. Here, for 
many years, it was believed that a tooth of Buddha 
Was preserved ; it was regarded as a relic of great 
holiness. It was destroyed by the Portuguese, and 
one of ivory is substituted. The temple was also 
interesting as the repository of a library of Bud- 
dhistic literature ; the books in one alcove are in 
the ancient Sanscrit language. 

Ceylon, now a British possession, has been un- 
der control of Europeans — Portuguese, Dutch or 
British — for some four hundred years. It was 
once divided into several petty kingdoms, generally 
engaged in wars. Its main products are tea, rub- 



CEYLON, THE BEAUTIFUL 215 

ber and rice. Once coffee was a staple product, 
but about forty years ago a fungus destroyed the 
plant, and tea was substituted. This industry 
has grown amazingly ; the annual output exported 
has reached 190,000,000 pounds. 

Adam's Peak is a sacred shrine, visited annually 
by many thousand pilgrims. On it is an indenta- 
tion in the rock which is in the form of a human 
foot. The myth-making instinct of man has 
given to this stony freak several interpretations. 
To the Buddhist it is the imprint of the footsteps 
of Buddha ; to the Hindu of Siva ; to the Moslem 
of Adam. Thus each religion finds the spot sa- 
cred. To make a pilgrimage to it is a high act of 
superstitious duty. 

Kandy is a delightful little place, snugged in 
green hills. An artificial lake refreshes it with 
coolness. The town offers numerous attractive 
excursions. One of them is a ride to the river, 
where we saw seven sacred elephants taking their 
afternoon bath. The bulky creatures sported in 
the water like children. Their riders scrubbed 
them with curry-combs ; patted them, as they lay 
sprawled upon the bed of the shallow river; and 
called them by their names when they wished them 
to come out. 

Another fine excursion is to the botanical gar- 
dens at Peradeniya. 

Here is a large collection of tropical growths. 
A railroad ride of about forty miles took us up a 



216 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

steep grade, to Hatton. We passed immense 
plantations of tea and rubber. Tea seems to 
thrive the best in high altitudes. The hillsides 
were covered with the bushes carefully adjusted 
in long rows and cultivated with scientific preci- 
sion. The tea-plant is long-lived. The climate of 
Ceylon is admirably adapted to its culture. The 
paddy (rice) farms are generally located in the 
valleys. 

As almost everywhere in the Orient, we heard 
the cry of scarcity of labor. Indentures are not 
now much in use. Labor is free. Wages are 
slowly rising. India offers a swarming labor mar- 
ket. Thousands of Tamils work on the planta- 
tions of rice, rubber and tea. Their employers 
advance their passage-money. Complaints are 
heard, as in the Malayan Peninsula, of the fre- 
quent faithlessness of the coolies in failing to 
keep their contracts. It seems singular; but we 
heard the complaint over and over again in Java, 
the Malayan Peninsula, and Ceylon, that the na- 
tive is indolent, indisposed to work, with few wants, 
and little ambition to learn any new processes. 
So, alien labor must be imported. 

THE INDIAN OCEAN 

On March 14, we started by steamer for the 
long voyage to Marseilles, France, via the Red 
Sea and Suez Canal. It was not quite a farewell 
to Asia, for we knew that the steamer would touch 



CEYLON, THE BEAUTIFUL 217 

at Aden, Arabia ; but it was a farewell to the im- 
pressive Indian civilization ; to all the vivid ex- 
periences which make India the most fascinating 
to the tourist of all lands. Behind us lay the 
mighty cities, the glorious temples and mosques, 
the many millions of turbaned heads and swart 
faces ; the noisy streets of the bazaars ; the chatter 
of strange tongues ; the haunting, unreadable 
mystery in which the ancient land is shrouded. 
We thought of the much that we had seen ; of the 
more that we had not seen. All was now swept 
into the memory; the snowy Himalayas, the low- 
lands of Bengal and the Deccan, the plains of 
Punjab, the arid reaches of Rajputana and Hy- 
derabad ; the tumbling ridges of South India ; the 
plantations of Ceylon. 

Favoring winds and gentle waves made the voy- 
age pleasant. The steamer was crowded with 
passengers. It came to Colombo from Australia. 
More than half the 300 passengers were from that 
distant island, and from still more distant New 
Zealand. A cheery, robust lot of people, they look 
as if the world had used them well. When they 
reach England, — " home," they all call the mother- 
land, — they will have been more than a month on 
the steamer. 

The steamer's course was over that part of the 
Indian ocean known as the Arabian Sea or Gulf. 
Happily, the extreme heat which we dreaded, was 
absent. The northerly monsoon favored us. 



218 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

On the third day we sighted the northeast 
coast-line of the great continent of Africa ; the in- 
dependent region, known as Somaliland, where the 
Mad Mullah gave the English so much trouble a 
few years ago. It is a grisly, inhospitable shore- 
line ; with hardly a tree in sight ; running back to 
gray hills. The only visible signs of life were a 
few tiny villages and an occasional fish-boat. 
North of Somaliland are Italian and French pos- 
sessions ; back of them Abyssinia ; then the arid 
wastes of Upper Egypt. 

ADEN, AEABIA 

On the fourth day we entered the harbor of 
Aden. This ancient city is now an English pos- 
session, incorporated as a part of the Bombay 
Presidency. In the harbor lay several steamships. 
Aden is strongly fortified, as it commands the 
entrance to the Red Sea. Once it was an out- 
post of Phoenician commerce. That adventurous, 
seafaring race sent its flat-bottomed vessels down 
the Red Sea in search of gums, pearls and tropical 
products ; and down the east coast of Africa for 
ivory. The commercial importance of Aden is 
shrinking. It is a collection of Arab villages, in- 
habited by all sorts of dusky races. 

We spent nearly a day on shore. Nothing could 
be more uninviting than the parched purlieu of 
Aden. There is no arable soil; no vegetation. 
It is a treeless, plantless waste. The region is 
almost rainless. Some Arab chief — no one knows 



CEYLON, THE BEAUTIFUL 219 

when — constructed a system of water tanks, in 
days before the condensation of brine was discov- 
ered. These tanks were designed to catch the 
drip of the thunder-storms, which occasionally 
burst over the desert's dusty face. They have a 
storage capacity of 8,000,000 gallons. They are 
now entirely empty. The water used in Aden is 
obtained by condensation and sold to the people. 
The tanks are ingeniously constructed and are the 
one object of interest to the tourist. Salt is dis- 
tilled in large quantities from the sea-brine. 

The street life in Aden is of the most miscellan- 
eous character. Here are seen the Bedouins, the 
men from the province of Yemen; those of the 
Azra tribe ; Samalis, Soudanese, Nubians ; fierce- 
looking clansmen from the interior of Arabia; 
Jews and some Hindus. The camel is the univer- 
sal beast of burden. Thousands of them trail 
into and out of the city loaded with packs that 
would crush a horse. One section of the city is 
devoted to a camel market. Coifee, dates, figs, 
ostrich feathers, gums and spices are the main ar- 
ticles of commerce. Caravans of camels from the 
unknown interior of Arabia come and go in ghostly 
procession. 

All food is imported into the city; yet the peo- 
ple seem to be well-fed. Loafers lounged about 
the shop-doors, playing cards. As the Arabs are 
Mohammedans, the women are veiled. 

Aden is a strange, wild, parched city of nearly 
50,000 inhabitants. Behind it stretch incommun- 



220 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

icable deserts, where the nomadic Bedouins range 
on camels and Arabian horses ; fierce, untamed, 
lawless, rapacious. 

Little is known of Arabia; yet it is the birth- 
place of one of the world's great religions. From 
its deserts the Saracenic followers of the Prophet 
once poured over Western Asia, Northern Africa, 
and Southern Europe; animated by frenzied fan- 
aticism, greedy for loot. Mecca is visited by 
every faithful Moslem who can manage to get him- 
self there. Under the fierce skies of Arabia, on 
its thirsty sands, in its palm groves, are an un- 
known number of millions of people ; living as their 
fathers did; proud of their faith, impervious to 
new truths. 

In its way, Aden was very interesting. In the 
summer, it is one of the hottest places on the globe. 

THE RED SEA 

We passed Perim and Cape Babel Mandeb in 
the early morning, before daybreak. When we 
awoke, we found ourselves on the Red Sea. There 
was nothing in its color to indicate the appropri- 
ateness of its name. It is about 1300 miles long. 
Its greatest width is 200 miles. The sea is shal- 
low ; coral reefs line the African and Arabian 
shores. It is in a slow process of upheaval. A 
great commerce passes over it. Some of the ugly- 
looking reefs are surmounted with lighthouses. 

The drowsy days passed in languid idleness. 

It is an interesting experience to touch the 



CEYLON, THE BEAUTIFUL 221 

thought and Tvays of far-off Australasian life ; to 
compare views on the intricate problems which all 
the nations of the world are facing : to learn a little 
of the manner of Antipodal life, 

THE SUEZ CANAL AXD POET SAID 

For sixteen hours the steamer strained through 
the Suex Canal. Its level, sandy banks contrast 
strangely with the rocky cliffs through which the 
Panama Canal has been hewn. Here and there 
was an Egyptian village; now and then a train 
of camels ; an occasional palm-grove ; but most of 
the landscape was an arid plain ; a dreary waste. 
Much engineering skill is required to keep the 
canal from filling with silt. Trees have been 
planted; barricades constructed; channels de- 
flected. Yet with all this expense the canal is a 
highly prosperous investment. 

We landed at Port Said for a day. The shore- 
town had greatly improved since my last visit, 
four years ago. It has been vivified into quite a 
clean and respectable port. Most of the shops 
seemed to be kept by French and Italians. 

In the late afternoon we set sail for Marseilles, 
France. The sands of low-lying Egypt receded 
into the gathering darkness. 

FAB.EWELX TO THE GEEEXT 

We were moving from the dreamy Orient into 
the more robust Occident. Behind us, were the 
ancient lands of mystery; the cradle of all the 



222 GOLDEN WINDOW OF THE EAST 

great religions of the world; the plumed palms, 
the cocoanut groves, the rose-tinted skies; the 
oceans of human life ; inveterate traditions ; im- 
mense areas of uncharted history; swarms of 
nationalities ; the appealing call of the home-land 
of the human race ; the incommunicable charm ; the 
inarticulate throbs of a billion of hearts. 

Before us was the Occident with its civilizations 
building upon the dynamics of liberty; with its 
glory of mechanics, its witchery of science. We 
knew that, in the interaction of the East and 
West, the collision will be largely of realities with 
dreams ; of the trained brain and hand with riot- 
ous imagination and crude muscle ; of free inquiry 
with ancient superstitions. 

The rosy clouds softened into mother-of-pearl. 
The tremulous vapor thickened with jet. 

Soon, black night settled on the restless Med- 
iterranean, and closed 

"The Golden Window of the East." 



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